Keeping With Destiny

by Stephan Knox

She paused as her fingertips made their way through the tangle discovering the recognizable feel of an ejection port and a bolt handle. She tore through more of the webbing to get ahold of it in both hands on her new discovery. There was no mistaking the sturdy stock of a rifle though still visibly obscured by the tangle of wild grass weeds. Within seconds, she had her fingers wrapped around it, and tore it from the overgrowth, nearly falling back on her ass when the nest of stringy roots broke loose of their final hold on it.

  She held it up, turning it as she scanned it for condition. It wasn’t nearly as shiny and pretty as Tannin’s sword, but it was still a trophy prize by her standards. A long barrel, assault sniper pulse rifle.

  A smile came over her deep thoughts as her inspection of the assault rifle was in excellent condition. It was certainly a gem of a find.

  Tannin’s shadow was now hovering over her, and as if to confiscate it he reached over her in an attempt to take the gun from her hands.

  Aari twisted, taking her prize with her to keep it from him. It was hers. She found it.

  “You can’t handle that It’s almost as big as you are,” Tannin dejected any confidence in her.

  That just pissed her off. She was small, yes, they both knew that, but then she had made it clear to him before, she had earned her position at the squadron base, and not by fucking.

  She turned on her heels, drifting a glance down the parted trees of the road path while hefting the rifle in her grip to get a feel for its weight. “Pick a target,” she ordered defiantly, determined to make him eat his words. Her eyes already adjusting to some far away landscape. Only she knew his vision was considerably sharper than hers. He would pick one she couldn’t see on her own, thinking he could best her that way and win. Then again, she didn’t need to, she just needed to make the mark. She flipped open the guard to the built-in smart scope loaded on the top of the gun, angled it just right, and then aimed the miniature solar panel inside its guard, towards the small break of sunlight overhead. It wasn’t much, but these little solar powered gadgets didn’t need much. Within a short moment, the small homing screen flickered on and an image far beyond her eyesight became visible.

  “Just shy of a furlong down, there’s an old-world lamp post. Get that and—”

  Before Tannin could finish, Aari pulled the trigger and a click and a half after that the lamp exploded. She turned, looking up at him with a smug confidence. He took in a deep breath, but she could see the smile he was trying to hide from her before letting out a soft sigh. A small gesture of surrender or the closest thing to it she was likely to get. Either way, he shrugged, adjusting the position of their packs on his shoulder, and started down the road without another attempt to disarm her.

  Aari fell in step a few strides behind him. While she still had her headache, she also had a gluttonous grin to go with it. Not to forget, she now had a new prize weapon and this time it was actually hers.

  All that changed in less than the span of time that might have taken a half a turn on a Skaddary clock.

  Tannin caught their scent but there was little they could do having gotten trapped in the small gorge. He tensed up, catching Aari by her coat and yanked her against him, that’s when the first wave of their attackers struck.

  A stampede of horses came from around the bend charging them. They both spotted the two riders, but Aari couldn’t take a shot, not with Tannin forcibly throwing her out of the path of the horses and against the rocky walls of the ravine.

  Tannin fired and missed but his next shot took out the horse the man was on, instead. Just then the sky fell from above, raining down on them with a shower of loose rock. Aari tried to run for cover but something far heavier came crashing down on her. Something with hands.

  She let out a cry, twisting just as she slammed face down in the dirt. She quickly gained her wits and went into defense mode. She brought the butt of her new rifle up, cracking the man across the bridge of his nose. But her attacker was no gangly man; a large brute with more hair on his face than the top of his head grabbed her and flipped her over, then straddled his heavy weight over her body while blood dripped from his nose. He brought a thick arm around and clocked her in the jaw with a heavy fist, setting off shards of white light flashing behind her eyes.

  “Don’t make me’h hafta kill ya, yew’ll not seek a good pay if yar a dead whore,” the brute shouted with a gravelly voice using a dialect that was difficult to understand.

  “Better look elsewhere, grub. I’m no man’s whore,” she seethed, pitching her weight in order to bring the rifle around again. This time he was prepared, and he caught her rifle by the barrel and then slammed it down over her throat and pressed until he had her pinned under his weight.

  She felt the crushing pressure across her larynx, making it impossible to swallow.

  He pressed more until cutting off the wind to her lungs. Where was Tannin? And then she heard it— the clashing ring of steal. She could not see who or how many he was fighting, but she could hear the strike of his sword against another. And she oddly wished the brute would just get the drenn off of her so she could see him in action with his spadone.

  Unable to breathe, she had but only moments, and given she was no match for the gorilla sitting on her, she released her rifle, and reached down along her legs for her sidearm. Her fingers caught the trigger of her pulse pistol and fired without having ever unholstered it. The brute sprang up, his face frozen somewhere between shock and pain. His shoulders teetered then he collapsed on top of her. The smell of rank old urine and blood choking off her first gasp for air.

  Aari quickly pushed, kicked, and squirmed until she was free of the gorilla, sending the dead weight of the brute toppling to his side and the blood sodden pants revealed the hole between his legs where there might have once been man-tools.

  She felt the sudden flood of emotions spill from her spine. But not all were over Aari having once more killed a man. This time she noted that some of the emotions sent fear. The fear of the consequences of being raped. They were more exposed now than they had ever been. At least at the Skaddary Base there were laws in place and raping another soldier meant exile. The law had in fact lessened the chance of it happening. But Aari’s sym was just now coming to terms about what it would mean to be locked in union and what would happen if they became bonded to the wrong sort of scum.

  Aari forced her eyes to look away, as well as mentally battle with her Symbiotai to turn its own focus away, which turned out not to be so difficult with the fight that still ensued between Tannin and the other men no more than a dozen or so spans from her.

  She quickly retrieved her rifle and aimed, but the men moved about too much for her to lock onto a target. She trusted her aim, but not when they were dancing around Tannin.

  She’d never seen anything like it. Tannin held the longsword with both hands as he sidestepped between the two men, bringing the massive blade up and around, in a crisscross swing meant for both his opponents. Each approach seemed preplanned precisely then reversed as he stepped away, dodging the two men’s own attempts. The shorter man, whose clothes were already bearing a few bloody lines from the battle, swung madly with a battered blade that could hardly be called a sword but more like a machete that’d been crudely sharpened on the wrong side. The second man, tall and dark skinned, was doing a fair better fight against Tannin. His broad swings of the wide, double edged blade had Tannin jumping back more than once and sucking in his middle to avoid being gutted on more than one charge.

  Tannin’s steps seemed so fluid to her. Not the hulking, bash and clobber type of fighting she was used to at the base or from what she’d come against in her runs. He stepped lightly on the balls of his feet, each step carrying his body to turn completely around or to step and thrust, toe to heel then back again.

  The men he fought against continually tried to force Tannin into a corner against the ravine cliff wall, an advantage Tannin wasn’t giving willingly. And then she spotted the
body of an already fallen man just beyond the dueling trio. The crumpled rock under the body painted in a dark pool of blood.

  One of his attackers cried out and Aari turned back to them, finding Tannin’s spadone buried in the machete man’s gut while at the same time sending his foot out to catch the darker man full on in the chest and sent him skidding back.

  Tannin freed his sword, took a long stride back then danced back in between the two, swinging his blade over his shoulder and downward across the already wounded man’s torso, cleaving him nearly in half. He wrenched the sword free once more and backed up a step to launch himself in a pivot, bringing the sword up just in time to block the darker man’s advancing sword intent on Tannin’s neck or shoulder. The burrang of steel on steel as they collided rang off the gorge’s walls, echoing back every strike turning the fight into a frantic clatter.

  Swings and jaunts blurred between each of them. Streaks of silver whipping around and thrusting, seeking the flesh behind cloth. Neither of the men afraid to throw in a cheating punch or two between cuts. Like a macabre dance of hit and miss. Honor wasn’t a rule, only the fight until only one was standing.

  The darker man changed his tactic, swinging his blade in a figure eight.

  Tannin, rather than backing off, stepped into the blade’s perimeter just as it swept outward, bringing the pummel on his spadone up and bashed the man in the face before pivoting away. But not before the offending sword caught him across the upper arm leaving a red slice. He let out a harsh bellow like a bear who’d just been rudely awakened. He slapped the side edge of his spadone upwards setting aside the darker man’s blade on the follow up approach, nearly knocking it from his grip. The move left the man exposed and Tannin took it with a right to left slash that cut deep into the darker man’s torso.

  The fight paused as the attacker swaggered on his feet. The weight of his sword effecting his guard as it drooped lower. Now the small canyon amplified with the harsh gasping breaths of both men. Each further extenuated by the billowing puffs of fog in front of their faces. Tannin’s chest heaved like a mountain stirring up from the ground with each lung full, but other than that he showed no signs of tiring.

  The pause ended when the now wounded darker man came at Tannin with a full-on charge.

  Their swords connecting, then slid against each other until both men were locked at the helms. Feet anchored into the ground to set more weight behind their shoulders as they glared eye to eye.

  Tannin let out a menacing howl, calling up more strength from within. His sym answered his call and he shoved the darker man free from the locked blades. Then suddenly stooped down, grappling around the darker man’s legs. The rest being a blur but the next thing she could make out was the attacker flying haplessly through the air then crashing to the rocking ground half the distance between them and her.

  The attacker quickly rolled to his hands and knees, a quick look to locate Tannin in accordance to where his sword had fallen. And that was when his eyes instead landed directly on her.

  Aari still had her rifle but she shrank back with the look that burned in his eyes.

  She’d never forgotten the warnings all the Skaddary knew— that a man who’d already faced his death becomes a far more dangerous man. For now, knowing his fate, was a man out to take someone with him.

  Tannin came charging up behind him, his thunderous steps alerting his approach. The darker man sent a handful of gravel back targeting Tannin’s face before quickly launching to his feet and coming right for her.

  Aari sprang backwards, bringing her rifle up even as the man closed in on her. But she fired prematurely, the phaser pulse whizzing right over his shoulder and the next shot clicked with the dreadful sound of a dead charge. “Nooo!” she cried out as the man closed in, his sword raised up over his head to come down on her in a chopping stroke. But then the man and his sword were yanked to a stop as a long length of silver came out of his center and pointing straight at her.

  Aari shrank back until her back hit the rock behind her, unable to prevent the short cry escape her lips as she watched in slowed horror before the spadone stopped just a digit from her face.

  She held her breath frozen in her chest, feeling her heart pounding there even as the blade retreated but only some, leaving a tip of its death still visible.

  Tannin shouted towards the sky with some animalistic war cry.

  She couldn’t see him, her gaze still locked on the shocked face of their attacker and the tip of the spadone that protruded just below his heart. Then she watched as the man’s body was helplessly flung several feet away.

  He fell with a hard thud, then swaggered to gain his feet making no further than to his knees, his eyes shifting from her to Tannin. His hand blindly gripped, finding he no longer had his sword. Mindlessly, he looked about, finding not his but the hacked-up machete of his former companion instead. He dropped to his hands and crawled after it.

  Tannin followed after him, taking a long stride, twisted but then switched directions into a backstep, pivoting full about with his grip following in a full rounded swing with every bit of body set into it.

  The spadone caught the sun light as it extended out from Tannin’s grip and something in the darker man’s face knew he wasn’t going to survive the blow. He made the attempted defense move, machete knife sweeping up to block the kill stroke, but Tannin’s great sword cut right through the shorter blade of steel, then took the man’s head off.

  Death has a way of silencing the world sometimes.

  Even when it isn’t her own death and the kill was justified. There was still a moment of quietude while the mind comprehended and recounted all the steps that led up to that last fateful blow. Aari stared at the heaving back of the titan still standing over the headless body as if waiting for it to sit up and join the battle again. But it didn’t. She wasn’t even sure how long they seemed frozen in that moment, but her legs were beginning to cramp from being drawn up. And it only took one movement from her to break Tannin from his own spell. He whirled around, catching her under a heated gaze that scared the drenn out of her as much as it put her in awe of his strength and stamina.

  He slowly approached, his spadone now held in just one hand lowering, until he stood right before her, and dropped to his knees, coming over her. He grabbed her coat, pulling her to him then dropped his forehead to the top of her head were he just sat and panted with a gruff breath.

  Another long spell passed between them. She neither spoke nor tried to pull away. The hand that gripped at her side said otherwise had she even tried. Intermittent of his catching breath, Tannin sucked in long inhales through his nose, each one let out with a satisfied sigh.

  “Are you hurt?” he finally asked with a husky breath.

  Aari shook her head against his and she felt the slight nod from him.

  “Let’s find their camp and rest for the day.”

  She nodded as he slowly backed away and stood pulling her up with him, not even letting her step out of arms reach as they gathered their packs and searched for a trail that would lead them to the men’s camp.

  Tannin finally found it, a vertical climb from ledge to ledge up the ravine wall. They climbed up tossing their packs up one at a time then she was next, either being hefted up or he climbed ahead and then pulled her up.

  “How did they sneak up on us like that?” she asked as they finally made the top ledge.

  “They were downwind from us. By the time I did catch their scent there was little I could do. The stampede of horses was an interesting trick that threw me off some as well.”

  “So how do you know there won’t be more men waiting at their camp?”

  Tannin turned, glaring with some suggestive annoyance, but then shook it off with a heavy exhale; letting whatever ego he was stripped from go. “Because I only smelled the four of them. But there is also a scent of a woman under all the smoke on their bodies. At least—” he paused, his brow furrowing in. “I thin
k it’s a woman.”

  Aari gulped. “You think?” she questioned him quietly. “A woman? Smoke?” But her thoughts shifted from Tannin’s answer to what they found at the top of their climb. All around them, the whole area was scorched with black char from a recent fire. Even the smell of burnt wood still lingered, masking everything else. “Oh.” She tugged at the shoulder strap of her pack and rifle.

  He nodded, picking up the scent trail, and motioned his head for the trail.

  They made their way through the skeletal stand of dead trees. Blackened bark surrounded every tree base, first just a few rulers high but then whole trees stood like crisped out matchsticks until they reached a broad creek. The only way across was a haphazardly built bridge from downed trees lashed together with braided rope and then packed hard with clay. But there on the other side, she spotted the camp utilizing the belly shell of a rusted out hella-copper. Another one of the old-world mystery machines. They said the drenn things used to be able to fly. She’d even seen pictures of them, in some of the books back at the base, seemingly hovering in the sky. But looking at them as she did now, she wondered if it was just a trick or something because she just couldn’t imagine how the wingless machines could possibly get off the ground. They did, however, make for good shelters when available. Having slept in one before during a long transport trip.

  Tannin paused, taking in a deep inhale, double checking the area for any other scents. And like always, Aari found herself mimicking him, but all she smelled was smoky char.

  His hand floated back towards her like a snake. Only he seemed to be undecided of whether he wanted her to remain behind while he entered the camp or stay butted up against him. She glanced behind her then back to him and the camp. Staying back seemed a stupid idea by her accounts. There was nothing to take cover behind, and her rifle was worthless without a charged pulse cartridge.

  Tannin paced up along the bank, sniffing as he scoped out the camp. Something had him uneasy.

  “Are we going to cross or what?” she whispered, pulling her pulse pistol from its holster, growing tired of his unusual hesitation.