Keeping With Destiny

by Stephan Knox

  The landing was no more skillful than the flying and in what felt like the flying tank dropping out of the sky, it left her stomach up in the clouds somewhere while the machine landed with a hard thud. It no sooner stopped, and a side door dropped down like a moat ramp. Her abductors snatched her by an arm, hauled her up to her feet, and shoved her onto the lowering platform that opened up to the city.

  When she regained her footing on the make-shift tarmac, she was quick to make an assessment of her surroundings, hoping for an escape route. One look around her, in the creeping grey twilight, and she thought this had to be hell.

  The City Fortress was a massive leviathan structure of steel that vaguely resembled one of the old images Aari remembered seeing back at the Skaddary Base. A painting on the wall in the general’s corridor. The painting had been of a large vessel, bigger than most villages, even bigger than some cities that floated on the water. She remembered how the faded image showed it deck carrying an entire flock of the flying machines, yet, still managed plenty of room for the hundreds of men on it to stand in full formation. The one she looked at now could have been its superior, if it weren’t for its decade over the years.

  ~~ Ever hear stories about the rusty whales that washed ashore? ~~

  Aari had seen many smaller ships in her travels and they were always the same— having no legs for dry land, they most often sat pitched to one side. This one, despite its behemoth size, was no different, and yet, at whatever time it had come ashore, it had pitched, then vomited long metal boxes everywhere creating a massive scrap yard between them and the fortress ship.

  At some point, survivors had moved, shifted and manipulated the containers to suit their needs, turning some into shelters others into shops, storage, or armories.

  Walkways of various materials: scaffolding planks, fallen trees, and broken slabs of concrete, now crisscrossed in every direction like some mass labyrinth, allowing dwellers to converge from one container box to another. For Aari, it was a death trap rather than an escape route.

  A glance downward along with a quick sniff, confirmed the cramped spaces below the matrix of container boxes was the cesspool of the population. It reeked of its noxious fumes from a watery soup of urine, feces, and rotting compost.

  This was the City of Maegray. The very same that was now without the Blood Lord it got its name from. The hell where her sister died.

  Aari felt the butt of a rifle slap her across the back, sending her forward several steps, then another until she landed at the first of the many bridges she would take to reach the structure built atop of the listing ship’s hull. She glanced down again when she hurried scuttling under her feet, finding feral children nearly black with grime painted on their skin, peeking out from the shadows created by the container boxes.

  “Move!” the two men, who’d had brought her there, barked in unison.

  Aari made her way across the first of many bridges. This one easily managed given its solid structuring having been the roof top of one of the long container boxes. The next crossing was constructed of scaffolding and steel cable. A sentry shadowed them walking across several planks of wood which were latched together in a crisscross. Watching him, he apparently knew its path well as he gave no mind to where he stepped rather instead, his eyes were more interested in looking her up and down.

  The next bridge was wide but far from being solid, it bowed in several places, where several sheets of thin metal were bolted together, yet it held as all three of them crossed to yet another boxtop then used a downed tree to get to the next and it went on like that. Their entire way, heads poked out from containers or watched from nearby plankways, while little eyes looked up from below— trailing, and watching like tiny rats.

  It took nearly until forenoon for them to cross the labyrinth and finally make it to the rope cage that laced over the side of the ship’s hull. There, they climbed up until they reached the first real amount of solid structure on top the ship’s fortress and went in by means of a large welder cut hole in its side. There, they were met with a large rotund man having had more than his share of meals, appearing to have been waiting on them with little patience. And as he marched towards them, she could see he was equally battle-worn with as many scars as he was extra meals. But it was his eyes that disturbed her the most. Eyes filled with age-weary mirth that glared down at her, “What brings you here?” his commanding voice sounded parched.

  Aari didn’t respond, knowing well enough the question wasn’t directed at her, just his eyes.

  “We believe we found the woman the general was looking for, Lieutenant Colonel,” one of the abductors cleared his throat nervously with the misnomer, “Sorry, I meant, Lord Marshal, sir.”

  The man who’d just been acknowledged as the new Lord Marshal snatched Aari’s chin and yanked her to look up at him. Fingers that held her like a vice, practically lifted her off her toes. His face lowered towards hers as he stared into her eyes. His gaze shifting from one to the next.

  Aari tried to shift her gaze away, keeping her own eyes moving. The dye injection hadn’t been lasting as long as they used to and she worried now she could not pass a close examination. Nevertheless, Tannin had taken great care with her vials of dye throughout their travels and she had just recently renewed the injection of dye only a week ago.

  “Your eyes look funny,” he sneered from behind blackened teeth.

  A few things that would likely win her a backhanded swing came to mind, but she kept her tongue silent. Mostly in due, because she found it hard to work her jaw to formulate words while it was still held by the Marshal’s firm grip. Instead, she settled for spitting in his face.

  The man shoved her and with little effort, sent her flying backwards and into the two men who’d dragged her there.

  The side of Lord Marshal’s mouth curled up like he’d have his revenge with her later, then turned to the men as if they were more loathsome then she was. “What makes you think it’s her?”

  “She was where the seer said she’d be,” the rounder of the two answered.

  Aari glanced up realizing it was the freckled-faced one who’d threatened to cut her tongue out. Some sadistic vindication came over her. Now look who needs to mind his tongue?

  Lord Marshal glanced around apparently, his head made a slight bounce 1— 2— 3— he stopped as if he’d been taking a head count and was coming up a few short. “I sent five of you. Where are they?”

  She’d been right, and now she kept a tight focus on him, reading him the way Tannin would read her.

  “The man she was traveling with killed them,” Freckle-face answered.

  Aari snapped her eyes around to the Marshal, “He lies. Weren’t but the two of them from the start. Stupid meddlesome fools got me in their flying thing before my pay-dirt for the night could catch up to stop them.”

  The Lord Marshal wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, “You don’t say?” the sinister words dripped from his mouth and she knew what was about to happen, but she couldn’t duck fast enough. Before she could even think to move, he caught her across the cheek in a backhand that sent her to the floor this time. She hit the painted steel floor so hard, the impact knocked the wind from her with a silent unmph.

  The Lord Marshal straightened, gloating over his handy work in an almost adamant attention, while he fished out a large Bowie with a black blade from whatever sheath or hiding place he kept behind his back. He slapped the blade flat against his palm, looking down at her, contemplating his options. What those might have been, she wasn’t sure. That was, until one of the men asked about the payment promised them. That’s when the Lord Marshal’s blade swung out like a whip.

  In one swift movement that passed over her like a shadow, the bowed edge of his blade ran across two necks.

  The expelled gasps came out in gurgles that hissed and bubbled with futile attempts to cry out. As if time had been stalled or the bodies were reluctant to conceive their fate— it seemed t
oo much time passed before both men slowly slunk to the floor with a slight thud.

  Now lifeless, their corpses bled out across the floor and a large pool of dark crimson that filled the room of its heavy copper smell.

  Aari rolled up and curled her feet into her as the puddle of blood spread out across the floor, watching it in muted horror. It wasn’t her first-time seeing blood, but she never did take a liking for it. Even now, it still bothered her. She savored that small timidness in her. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that she could say she had not lost all of her humanity. If she could be called human at all.

  After a long moment, when it looked as though the blood had stopped reaching for her, she dared to look up at the man who’d downed his own men without warning awaiting his intentions for her.

  “Now, let’s see if you are who she says you are,” he sneered.

  Aari took that as a cue she needed to get to her feet, and not wanting to learn any more of his ways of doing things, she headed down the corridor in the direction he’d pointed.

  The corridor was nothing more than a skeleton of twisted steel beams draped over with layers of camouflage nets. Ahead, she could see the former Lord’s fortress and painted on it as large as the fortress itself was the symbol she’d seen brandished to the side of countless men’s heads. A blood-red oval said to be the sovereign collar over all men. A large letter M was painted over its bottom edge in black which represented Maegrethe himself. Or for the Lord Marshall now, she supposed silently. It was finished off with a long spike running through the entire symbol from top to bottom— death to all who defied them. Aari knew their mantra for Maegrethe’s men had been the supreme attacking force to the Skaddary Base she had defended since her time at the academy. What would the Lieutenant think of her now, having fallen into their hands? She knew the answer to that. He would have to kill her. It wouldn’t be a matter of mercy or duty to the guillotine hunters, it was that she was a breeder and the Skaddary could not afford another blood lord to rise up immortal because of her.

  The fortress itself looked as though someone had taken a multistory building of old-world and set it on top of the deck of the megalith steel whale. Only when the ship listed to its side, so too, did the fortress. Since then, it had been cut free from the ship’s deck, leveled out, and then braced into place.

  To her, the whole thing looked oddly out of place.

  Guards at the end of the netted tunnel, without hesitation to the Lord Marshal’s approach, spun the wheel of a heavy steel hatch door of their post, then hefted it open.

  Aari stepped through the hatch and into the dimly lit hall. She paused, letting her eyes adjust to the lack of lighting, but a hard push from the Lord Marshal had her moving once more.

  The passage was considerably narrow inside and covered in random displays of graffiti. Maybe if they peeled off all the layers of paint and writing, there might be room enough for one man to pass at a time.

  Taking her arm roughly, her possessor steered her to a nearby flight of stairs so steep she had to grasp the rail to steady herself as she made her way up the near vertical climb until reaching yet another hallway equally narrow of breadth but less savage by poor artwork. They came across a few men, who either out of training or fear scrambled to step aside, either into alcoves or other corridors, to give way to their superior.

  She was forced up another ladder of steps, where once reaching the third level someone called out, “Clear the way! Your Lord Marshal arrives!”

  There were a few more men and even a few women on the third level. All of them well armed, but like those below were quick to step out of the passageway by the time Aari and the new leader approached as they made their way towards what Aari presumed would be the rear of the massive building structure. There, they came to the first set of real steps she’d seen since they entered the ship. Aged and weather-beaten wood stretched out along the staircase, at least as wide as Tannin was tall if not more. A few of the steps had under gone repairs with replacement wood, roughly cut into planks and nailed down. As they made their way up, one flight then another and another, they reached their final destination. Aari turned at the top of the last set of stairs, she found herself in what could be nothing more than a massive room of grandstanding. Unlike the floors below this one had been gutted of all its walls and was no filled with the prizes of countless foraging and hostile take overs. It was nothing more than a placating palace over a pile of shit.

  The Lord Marshal gave her a few more shoves from behind, until she was centered in the room, then he brushed past her to a bar along the far wall. He pulled open a bottle, poured a generous amount of its amber liquid into a glass, and then flipped it down his throat with a slight wince, before walking back to take some further note of her.

  Aari kept her face down, letting her choppy hair fall into her eyes, allowing herself some gain to look about. She tried not to flinch as he grabbed one arm, then the next, letting them flop back to her side as he let go. He took a lock of her black hair and bent over to take a whiff of it, “Not very pretty, are ya?”

  Aari cringed at the comment. Not that she wanted to be an attraction for the man, though much of her hair had started to grow out, she was still prone to cut the dreads out rather than sit there and try to untangle them every morning. And she was aware of what every cut did to her appearance and yet it didn’t cease to wound her to hear it said out loud.

  The Lord Marshal let out a grunt like huff. “You don’t have the blue eye of the parasite. So, what are ya?”

  “Outlander Gunner Officer, Guillotine Hunter Unit 315 OI, Skaddary Militia Base-Southern Alpha 5, 9th District,” she rambled off her rank as trained to do so. She was a pawn, a skud, with no value to the militia that the enemy could use to barter for.

  He sneered. “You don’t say.”

  Aari’s eyes shifted away from him. Mocking her for her size or sex didn’t bother her, she’d been born a runt, but she had brought more than a few big guys down in her days and there wasn’t a gun she didn’t know how to use.

  As he studied her, she let her attention drift to the large mounted cannon gun against the left wall, calibrating it from under her mop of hair. She not only knew what it was, she knew how to fire it. There were a few just like it at the base brought back by scavenging teams. She recalled one of her commanders saying they came from battleships. She had no idea what a battleship was, but she knew this gun packed a lot of fire power. At least ten times that of a fifty cal. Not to mention a huge thrill when she’d had a go at one during training.

  Her attention snapped back to the Lord Marshal when he moved, fighting back the involuntary reflex to flinch away, half expecting the movement to be another smack her way.

  “Does your hair grow or fall out?” he barked out the question as he circled. Her hair wasn’t the only thing he was interested in as she felt the brush of his hand along her backside.

  “Why would it fall out?” she kept her gaze down; doing so widened her peripheral sight range, and better track of his circling.

  “Radiation sickness, some call it. Places where the land makes you sick just from walking on it. It makes your hair fall out.” He grabbed some of the short strands where she’d cut out a recent dread of hair and tugged it hard before letting her go. “I’d hate for my dick to fall off just for fuckin’ ya. But then, if you were the parasite girl the seer claims you are, you wouldn’t be sick, now would you?”

  Aari cringed under the brief sting on her scalp but didn’t voice the pain. Her greater concern was they were about to discuss an identity no one was meant to know. “I don’t know what you are talking about. We’ve pretty much killed all the parasites. Hadn’t seen one for several cycles of the seasons.” Perhaps too much sass spilled from her by the look she got from him, and already she dreaded any reprieve.

  His hand suddenly clamped around her jaw and forced her to look up at him. “We’ll soon find out now, won’t we?” He leered at her, then turned his a
ttention over his shoulder to someone she hadn’t noticed until he called on them, “Come out here, old seer.”

  Aari gulped hard and heavy as a decrepitly old woman dressed in long robes of dark rags shuffled out from a recessed alcove. The woman’s steps rattled as chains were dragged along with each step. The woman held her shaky hands out delicately before her, as if ready to catch herself should she fall. Perhaps a condition of being shoved forward often.

  Aari hardened her mind at the mention of a seer, fearful of what the old woman might see— or far worse— tell.

  She’d heard of the seers before, but had never met or seen one. Even Tannin had spoken of them. One in particular who was believed to have warned his mother when he was born to bear him away and keep him safe. Listening to Tannin and other tales, Aari often wondered if maybe the seers were merely one of the many disguises of Them, parading amongst the population, pretending to be people with extra gifts of sight, or if the sight was a gift of a Symbiote.

  Looking at the woman now, she felt neither was the answer. Could this old woman be a mind reader or just fortune teller hacks? Just in case, Aari kept her thoughts as narrow as possible. She was a soldier of the Skaddary Militia, an orphan raised in the academy of hunters, and trained to operate any transport vehicle and fire any form of weaponry, large or small. And she repeated it over and over in her head.

  “Well?” the Lord Marshal questioned the old woman with a spur of impatience.

  “Did they catch her where I said they would find her?” she answered the question with a question.

  “So they say. Now, answer the question.”

  “Was the great warrior with her?” she deflected again.

  His hand snatched out, grabbing the old woman by an iron collar that was hidden under the hood of the woman’s robes and yanked her forward on her toes towards him, “Enough of your questions. Is she the breeder or not?”