“I used to ride every day, but never on a horse this big.” Dax wrapped her arms around Nyx’s waist and hugged her. “Thank you for buying Fury for me. I love him.”
“I hope you’re ready for this,” Nyx said with a laugh. “I ride all the time too, but after riding this monstrous thing all day, I’ll be lucky if I can fucking walk tomorrow.”
She heard Dax snicker. Nyx smiled as she looked back. Indeed, Dax was opening up and seemed to realize that Nyx only wanted to be her friend.
Riding their own horses, Ajax and Kilo trotted out of the snowfall. Dressed in their oversized black furs, Kilo was on an appaloosa and Ajax was riding a brown quarter horse. Both horses were full-grown, but compared to Fury they looked like ponies. Ajax was the larger, muscular one and Nyx knew him well, but she barely knew the thinner, younger man that rode beside him.
When Nyx noticed that Kilo had the same sun-reddened skin and dark hair as Dax, she turned her head back toward her friend.
“Do you know the smaller man?” Nyx whispered. “He looks like he could be from your tribe.”
Dax peered around Nyx’s shoulder to study him.
“No,” she whispered back. “I do not know him. He must be from one of the Northern tribes.”
“Oh.” This information caught Nyx off guard. She didn’t know there were more tribes than the one the Archons repeatedly raided.
Ajax pulled his horse up, facing Nyx. “You finally ready?”
On the ground, the man stood a full foot taller than Nyx. While she sat on Fury, that was no longer the case. Today, if he wanted to make eye contact, he was looking upward; something that delighted Nyx when she noticed it.
Somewhere along the line, Ajax had found some medieval sword that he wore strapped across his back. He kept his long raven hair tied in a low ponytail and had scars all over his face and hands. The man was bad news and everyone knew it. He had fought in the arena four times and butchered his opponent each time. And his arena wins weren’t luck. His opponents were all capable warriors who had simply pissed him off.
Kilo, on the other hand, there wasn’t anything threatening about him. He got his name because he weighed no more than 150 pounds, soaking wet. He was some bony young man that Ajax claimed as his own personal sex slave. He’d kidnapped him from one of the native tribes that lived out in the wasteland.
“Let’s get this over with.” Nyx gave him a sneer. And when Ajax hadn’t moved, she added. “Lead the way, asshole. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going. You do.”
He eyed Dax, then Nyx again. Then he yanked his horse’s reins as he dug his heels into the animal’s hide. The horse broke into a trot. And with Kilo right behind him, they disappeared into the snowfall.
Nyx turned her head toward Dax again.
“Don’t make eye contact with Ajax, the bigger man,” she said. “I’m trying to get us there and back without having to fight that fucker. If he looks at you, just look away. Okay?”
She felt Dax nod. “Okay. I will remember.”
Nyx pulled up her parka to readjust the tonfa sheath strapped to her thigh. On any other horse, it never bothered her. Today, the handles of the two long wooden sticks were already digging into her hip. As there didn’t seem to be a position where they didn’t rub against her, she pulled the tonfa from their sleeves. She paused, briefly considering leaving them behind. But, then she changed her mind. She couldn’t afford to be defenseless around Ajax. And with that thought, she handed her weapons to Dax.
“Can you put these in one of the saddlebags for me? Somewhere in there you’ll find my knife. I’ll need that.”
Dax grabbed the tonfa. After feeling her passenger rustle about for a long moment, Nyx felt a pat on her back, then Dax’s hand offered Nyx a small dagger with a black grip.
“I put your sticks in a saddlebag,” Dax said.
“Thanks.”
Nyx slipped the dagger into her boot, then snapped Fury’s reins. The horse broke into a canter, chasing after the other horses. Dax’s mitten-covered hands wrapped around Nyx’s waist and she held on tightly.
III
As the three horses made their way through the frozen and decaying cityscape, Nyx occasionally looked back at Dax. Each time, the girl was wide-eyed and looking in awe at the crumbling skyscrapers that towered over this section of the city.
Due to the incessant snowfall, the tops of the skyscrapers weren’t visible, but they still left no doubt as to their immense scale. The building leaned uncomfortably, threatening to drop at any moment, but they simply hung there, silently peering back, watching as the four travelers made their way through the city. Much like the buildings, the streets were deathly quiet. And with the snow that blanketed the sidewalks and streets, even the horse’s footfalls were barely audible. The air was still, no wind to break the uncomfortable silence.
As the city streets were full of sinkholes and collapses that exposed the city’s ancient subterranean infrastructure, they were forced to ride on the sidewalks. Nyx normally wouldn’t have minded but most of the bricks and rubble from collapsing buildings that littered the sidewalks was now camouflaged by the snow. And that made it treacherous for the horses. She had to constantly pay attention to the landscape and guide Fury around every mound of snow.
After a half-hour or so, Ajax stopped and pulled out the wooden torch from the rear bundle on his horse. And Nyx knew what that meant. They were going underground.
“Grab the torch for me,” she called back to Dax.
As Nyx stopped her horse beside Ajax and Kilo, she spotted the subway entrance in front of them: their first destination. She reached under her parka and dug into her vest pocket for a match. Once Dax handed her the torch, Nyx struck the wooden match against the seam of her leather pants and the match ignited. She held the burning match to the old oil-soaked rag at the end of the wooden staff until it lit up, then she tossed the match into the snow.
Following Ajax, the three horses carefully stepped down the long stairway and into the old subway system. They made their way past the wooden and rusted metallic debris that was once a ticket station and turnstiles. Then they descended another layer deeper to the passenger platform. It was dark, damp, and the air thick with a layer of frosty fog. The air was crisp, stale, and musty. Somewhere in the darkness, echoing drips of water splashed into unseen puddles. At street level, snow and ice covered everything. Two levels below the surface, no one would have guessed the planet was descending into an ice age. Only occasional patches of frost on the cracked cement walls hinted at the arctic-like conditions above.
Once they’d found the pedestrian platform, they continued down the wooden ramp the Archons had built just for horses and into the subway tunnels. After a short break for water, they continued on, allowing the horses to canter on the way to their destination. Cantering through the dark and ancient tunnels was safe unless they came across open sections of the ceiling. That meant a collapse and rubble. And each time they spotted a recent collapse it briefly slowed their progress.
The city’s old subway system was now the Archon horse highway, which allowed them to travel great distances without much concern for weather, building collapses, and rubble. Like everything else, the Archons had men whose only job was to keep the tunnels clean of debris.
Nyx didn’t like this assignment, nor the two men that accompanied her, but she didn’t mind this part of the journey. She always loved riding horses underground. And as long as they were riding, and not talking, there were no problems with Ajax. And that also meant Dax was safe. After riding in these tunnels for years, Nyx knew them well, but not nearly as well as Ajax. He was far more of an explorer than she ever was.
After more than an hour of riding, Ajax stopped again. This time under an open manhole cover above an old iron ladder. Both Kilo and Nyx pulled their horses up beside Ajax. Nyx didn’t know why they stopped. And as she looked around, she also had no idea where they were anymore. She’d never been out this far before, and they’d taken too many t
urns to memorize.
“Why are we stopping?” Nyx demanded. “We couldn’t have traveled fifty miles yet.”
“Piss break, woman,” he said. “Go now because I’m not stopping again until I need it.”
Ajax and Kilo immediately dismounted and within seconds they were spraying piss all over one wall. Nyx and Dax were still pulling down their pants by the time the men finished. As Nyx squatted against the opposite wall with Dax, she noticed the two men were already on their horses, torches in hand, and watching the two women urinate with amused expressions. There wasn’t anything intimidating about a woman squatting to pee, nor interesting.
“Keep eyeballing me and I’ll gouge those fucking eyes out of your fucking skull,” Nyx told him. “Find something else to look at.”
He barked out a laugh. He turned his horse and trotted off into the tunnel. Kilo followed.
IV
Hours later, Ajax stopped and dismounted under another open manhole cover. One of the many they’d passed on their trek. Nyx found it unlikely that all these covers would’ve opened on their own. She suspected it was how Ajax knew where he was. He probably opened certain ones as markers. If so, he was a little more clever than she’d given him credit.
After dismounting, Ajax pulled a hand-drawn map from his saddlebag and studied under the diffused light streaming from the open manhole cover. Kilo then doused his torch with some water from his canteen.
“You want the water?” Dax’s hand held out a canteen to Nyx.
Nyx grabbed the canteen and downed several mouthfuls, then passed it back. “Thanks,” she said.
“I meant to put out the torch,” Dax added.
“No, I don’t want a wet piece of wood when I need to light it again.”
“We stop here,” Ajax announced, then turned toward Nyx. He pointed at the opening above the old iron ladder. “The last group exited here. No one has been any farther than this.”
“Is this where Scalpel was found?”
“How the fuck should I know?” He said with a sneer. “I’m not here to answer all your questions, woman. I was told to bring you here. Nothing more. What you do from here is up to you.”
Nyx refused to debate it with the man. He obviously had no intention of helping in this mission. And as Kilo was Ajax’s property, that meant she couldn’t count on him either.
She turned to Dax. “Time to go topside. Grab the canteen and my tonfa.”
The two women slid off the horse and Dax dug into the saddlebags. Dax handed Nyx her weapons, which she slid into their sheath on her thigh. When Dax offered her the canteen, Nyx waved it off.
“You carry that,” Nyx said. As Dax slipped the canteen over one shoulder and under her other arm, Nyx kicked off the old burning rag from the head of the torch. “Have you lived in the wilderness your entire life?”
The tunnel darkened as Nyx stomped out the rag.
“Yes,” Dax replied.
“Does that mean you can find your way around in the winter?” Nyx returned the unlit torch to Fury’s back. “Even when you’re in unfamiliar territory?”
“Mostly.” Dax shrugged. “If I can see, I can find usually my way around okay. If it is snowing a lot, then not so much.”
“I’ll need your help. We need to go exploring, but I don’t want to get lost. We’ll need to find this hole again.” Nyx pointed at the open manhole cover above the ladder. “While I’m scouting the area, can you keep track of where we are? So we can find our way back?”
Dax smiled and nodded. “I can do that. I will remember.”
Then Ajax’s voice interrupted. “She’s not going. Only you are. That’s what you were told, woman.”
Nyx turned to face him. He and Kilo were sitting, side by side, near the base of the ladder. Ajax held the map in one hand and an unlit wooden match in the other.
“You try and stop me,” Nyx said with a cold glare.
“It’s time for you to give Dax back to the clan,” he said calmly. “You aren’t the only one who gets to fuck her. She doesn’t belong to you, woman. She never has.”
Nyx gave Ajax her middle finger. “You’d be wise to ignore her. I’m not going to keep warning you.”
“What would you do if I tell you to fuck off?” He laughed. “Challenge me to the arena?”
“Find out. Keep pushing me.”
He barked out another laugh. “You know, I was going to challenge you to the arena right after you killed War Hammer, but Abraxas told me that you were off limits until he figured out what to do with you. So for now, you and I cannot settle our differences. He may be protecting you.” He pointed at Dax. “But, he’s not protecting her.”
Nyx laughed back. “Touch her, just once, and I’ll castrate you with my bare hands.”
He smirked. “You heard me. She stays here.”
“Abraxas may have told you that you cannot challenge me to the arena, but he said nothing to me.” Nyx jabbed a pointed finger at him. “I’ll fucking destroy you, boy!”
“And I told you, Abraxas won’t allow it. Now, you go do what you were told to do, woman. I’ll make sure Dax the Betrayer isn’t lonely.”
“She goes where I go. End of discussion.”
“You think so?”
“Dax belongs to me. Get used to it.”
Ajax broke their mutual glare to study the map in his hands. “Do you know your way back home?”
They both knew she didn’t. Nyx didn’t reply, hoping he was bluffing. He struck the match and held it close to the edge of the map, but just far enough away to send her a message.
Dax tugged on the sleeve of Nyx’s parka to get her attention.
“I’ll stay here,” she said with teary eyes. “You should go alone. It is okay. We can both go home that way.”
“No, it’s not okay,” Nyx said to her but pointed at Ajax. “Don’t listen to him. They’re planning on raping you, Dax. They both will. And that’s not going to happen. No, you’re coming with me and that’s final.” She turned back to Ajax. “This is your last warning, fucker. Do anything but sit there with your mouth shut and you’ll regret it. Burn the map, if you’d like. Leave now, if that’s what you want to do. It may take us a month to find our way home, but you’re a dead man as soon as I get back.”
“Your threats mean nothing to me.” He touched the match to the map and it erupted into flames. “Go. Take the girl with you. Fuck her one last time while you’re out there.” He tossed the burning map aside. “Unless you can get that fat ass horse of yours up the ladder and out that manhole, you’re coming back here. And I’ll be waiting. But no one’s leaving this place. Once you give her to me, then we’ll all go home. That’s the deal.”
“Then we may be here for a very long time, asshole,” Nyx said. “How long will you sit here without food?”
“Food?” He laughed again. “You’ll need sleep before I need food. You can’t stay awake forever and you can’t guard her while you’re sleeping. So, I don’t really care which way you want to play it, woman. You’ll give her to me. You’ll see.”
“I guess we will,” Nyx turned to Dax. “The hell with him. Let’s go do what we came here to do. We’ll deal with that asshole when we get back.”
“Please let me stay,” Dax whispered with teary eyes. “I know you are wanting to help me, but it is easiest if I stay. He will allow us both to go home this way.”
“You don’t understand,” Nyx whispered back. “I’ve seen what happens when they go on their raids and capture girls like you. If I give you to him, you aren’t going home. You’ll go with him to be shared with other men. A lot of other men. You’ll live in a small cage, naked, and you’ll eat and drink things that will make you sick. You’ll be subjected to things so horrifying that you’ve never imagined them in your worst nightmares.”
Dax began sobbing.
“At first, you’ll just be there for them to fuck,” Nyx continued. “And they’ll take turns fucking you all day and night, but you won’t find anything enjoyable about
it. You’ll be punched often, beaten for no reason, lose teeth, bleed a lot. Even if you did everything they asked with a smile on your face, you won’t entertain them for long. It may be a couple days, or if you’re really lucky, you may make it a couple weeks. You’ll hope and pray that they’ll find another girl to take your place, but that won’t make things any better for you. On the day you hear them talking about going on another raid for more girls, that’s the day they’ve decided they’re bored with you. But you still won’t come back to me. No, you’ll still have entertainment value. They’ll kill you for the sport of it. And even that won’t be painless. They’ll burn you alive, cut pieces off of you while you watch, beat you to death with steel rods... whatever cruelty crosses their minds at the time. Dax, listen to me, if you go with him, I’ll never see you again. The only way you’ll survive is to stay with me.”
“I want to go home!” Dax shouted.
Nyx wrapped her arms around her friend and pulled her close. As Dax cried on her shoulder, Nyx eyed the two men across from her. Ajax and Kilo were smiling devilishly like the predators they were. With no map and no way home, Nyx knew this was going to get worse. She was going to have to deal with them before this was over. She could feel it.
V
Outside the manhole cover, the sun was setting, but it remained light enough for Nyx to see her surroundings. She and Dax found themselves in the middle of an unknown section of the city. The streets were layered with roughly four or five inches of snow. Snow was still floating down, but not nearly as heavily as it had when they left this morning. The air was cold on her face, but it also didn’t seem to be as cold as before. Their breath suggested otherwise. Every exhale created a small area of fog around her, briefly concealing the landscape.
They seemed to have surfaced in the middle of an old interstate with room for several old Earth cars to travel side by side on her left and right. Then she noticed the wreckage of a car about fifty feet from where they stood. Curiously, under a layer of snow, the upside–down vehicle’s paint job could be seen. The glossy black paint suggested it wasn’t that old. Someone had obviously wrecked it but otherwise it seemed practically brand new. Every other vehicle on this planet had rusted away leaving only an ever-disintegrating shell.
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