by Greg Dragon
“She’s my little girl,” he says. I sense a protective undercurrent to his words, no doubt brought on by him witnessing our first kiss. Did I really just do that?
“I’m not like my father.”
“You already told me that,” he says. “Now you have to show me.”
“I will,” I promise. I stride to him, extend my hand. “I’m Tristan. Tristan Nailin.”
He takes my hand, squeezes hard, crushes my fingers. A test, maybe. Although it hurts like hell, I control my face, don’t cry out. “I’m Adele’s father,” he says sternly. I raise my eyebrows, intimidated by the serious man before me. My judge. My jury. Without his approval, I surely won’t get Adele’s.
He surprises me by breaking into a huge smile, chuckling under his beard. “Just kidding,” he says. “I’m not really that tough. Unless you do something to hurt my daughter, of course. Then I’m your worst nightmare. Name’s Ben. Ben Rose.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Rose,” I say.
“Just Ben is fine.”
“Thanks. And I won’t do anything to hurt your daughter—that’s a promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he says, leaving me and going to Roc and Elsey, who are dangling their feet in the reservoir.
I crouch down, put a hand on the stone. I imagine that I can feel small vibrations through the ground, the soft patter of her footsteps in the distance. I close my eyes and picture her green eyes looking up at me, her soft lips slightly parted. It had felt like she was about to kiss me, but then when she didn’t, I couldn’t stop myself, like I didn’t have a choice. Was it because of the pain? Did I subconsciously know it would relieve it? And why did it help?
I hope I’ll get the chance to ask her what she thinks.
I fear for her. The caverns are a dangerous place, and they get more dangerous the deeper you go. Cannibals, marauding gangs of thieves, and now legions of Star Dweller troops roam the depths, preying on the weak. Adele is not weak—she’s proved that every step of the way with her fighting, with the slingshot—but she’s also not invincible. Like when I started this adventure, I hope I’ll see her again.
I still don’t know what our feelings are for each other, or why they’re so strong, or even why they started with so much pain, but I want to find out. She’s like no one I’ve ever met before. So strong and capable—but tender and compassionate, too. At least that’s my first impression.
My only regret: I didn’t tell her what I know; about the Dwellers living on the surface of the Earth, the first of our people in almost five-hundred years to leave the Tri-Realms. It just never felt like the right time, and it’s not something you just blurt out, like a confession. I vow to tell her the next chance I get. Until then, she’ll live in my dreams, like my mom.
I gulp down a deep breath as I realize it’s true. I have no regrets about leaving the Sun Realm, even though now I know it’s probably for good. No regrets at all. I’ve changed. I’m no longer reliant on a soft mattress and a fluffy pillow and servants waiting on me hand and foot. I’m not addicted to the wealth and the power like my father. I’m the person my mother wanted me to be, the person I hope Adele needs me to be.
I kiss the tips of my fingers, touch them to the ground. “Farewell, Adele Rose,” I whisper.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Adele
The tunnel is right where Roc said it would be. He’s wrong about there not being any guards, though, but they’re both dead, lying awkwardly at the bottom of the stone staircase leading to the tunnel entrance. They’ve been shot and thrown down the stairs. I try not to look at their faces as we step over them.
We reach the top of the steps and I pause, looking back over the city. Thick smoke roils over the crumbling rooftops. A cheer rises up in the distance. The Star Dwellers have taken subchapter 26.
“My father gave me a note from my mom,” I say, my hand clenched tightly around the paper, crumpling it slightly.
“You should read it.”
“I’m afraid it will hurt too much.”
“Sometimes a little pain is good,” she says.
She’s right. After all, it was a little pain—okay, a lot of pain—that started everything with Tristan. I untighten my fingers, watching as red splotches replace the whiteness of my knuckles. I fold back the note, one corner at a time.
My mom’s faded handwriting is smudged in the center of the half-page.
You’ll know him when you see him, it says. And together you can save us all.
My heart sinks. I show it to Tawni. “A riddle,” I say. “I guess I was hoping for something more personal.”
Tawni scans the single line, says, “Maybe it is personal.”
I look at her. Think hard. “You mean…”
“Yeah,” she says. “Maybe she’s talking about Tristan.”
It can’t be. My mom doesn’t know Tristan any more than I do. She doesn’t know about the pain his presence caused me, how he saved me, how the pain is mostly gone now. She knows none of it. And yet, something tells me Tawni’s right. The note is about Tristan. And me. But who are we meant to be saving, and how? My family? We’re almost there—all that’s left is to find her, but now Tristan’s not coming with us, so does that screw everything up? Although I can’t even begin to understand what she means, it gives me a small measure of comfort knowing that there’s someone out there who gets what I’m going through and why. My mother.
I fold the note and tuck it in my pack. “Thanks for coming with me,” I say to Tawni.
“I didn’t have anything better to do,” she says.
I laugh. “You know, you’re not like your parents at all.”
Her face lights up, her gray eyes shining slightly under the glow of the overhead cavern lights. “That means a lot,” she says, tearing up. “Cole said the same…” She can’t get the rest of the words out as she stifles a sob with the back of her hand.
“I know,” I say. “Cole said the same thing. Because it’s true. He would’ve come with us, too. I know it.”
Tawni hugs me once, still afraid to speak, and turns to the cave mouth. A year ago it would’ve looked ominous, like the mouth of a monster, the stalactites hanging from above its teeth, ready to eat us alive. But now it just looks like a cave. Another challenge.
And I am ready.
The End
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No Kinda Life
by
Ryan King
“Being a lawman’s no kinda life,” his father had told him in that deep gravelly voice. The man hadn’t seen the inconsistency in the fact that he was a lawman himself. “The law’s a bitch of a mistress’s to serve…worse one to actually have feelings for,” the tough old man had added on his deathbed, but by that point he knew it was no use. By then, Austin was already a Ranger.
Austin often thought his father had been right. Looking down the long dusty road made him uncharacteristically introspective. It was like any other by-way in the northern part of the New Texas Republic...dry, hot, and deadly. He could have made a good living as a blacksmith, or a farmer, or a scavenger like many did, but he found out early that his choices were either to serve the law, or get served up on it. Without the benefit of a badge, his fierce temper and highly emotional nature would have seen him hanged for sure. Beating fools, shooting bandits, and hanging criminals just seemed to come easy to him.
Ginger pawed restlessly beneath him, eager to move on. Austin patted her tan flank and spoke soothing words. He sat on a hill and gazed out to his right over the ruins of what had once been a large city. Gigantic buildings stood like metal and concrete corpses against a backdrop of dust and haze. The old stories said that in this city more cattle than could be counted went through the stockyards and slaughterhouses and out to feed a huge nation of p
eople. Austin didn’t put much faith in the old stories; Amarillo looked like dozens of other wasted wrecks that were good now for nothing more than scavenging and ghost stories. He’d done some scavenging himself but didn’t care for it. It wasn’t the fear of dead Old Ones that bothered him, it was the idea that the Death Plague might still await them there somewhere, buried and ready to ravage the land again. Let others dig through old tombs for bits of metal and rock, thought Austin.
A circling buzzard to the north caught the tall man’s attention and he decided it was time to move on. He clicked his heals lightly to Ginger and she gladly started off at a canter. He skirted wide around the hollow mounds which were always filled with rusty steel and glass. These circled for miles round every old dead city and were inexplicably laid out in neat lines most of the time. Other long abandoned structures occasionally caused him to alter his course, all of them rotten and dead as old trees. He rode carefully for several hours around the ruins, watching for signs of sinkholes which were always a danger this close to the old cities. He finally came to the north side of the ruins and turned again towards his destination, the town of New Hope. Austin thought the name was likely ironical and expected it to be like hundreds of other towns he’d seen, desperately clinging to life and full of pragmatic people who wanted a Ranger in their midst as much as they would a rabid badger.
Like all the towns before, they’d cried for help not comprehending what they were asking for, and the Governor had sent one of his fabled Texas Rangers. Austin didn’t need to know the specifics of the problem; it would be the same as always…someone stronger was taking from someone weaker. The solution was also always the same…make them fight. Kicking and screaming against their will in most cases. The simple folks who cried out for deliverance all believed the same thing, that a Ranger would come with knowledge, and skills, and Lord help us, guns! They were all shocked when they realized they would have to fight themselves and worse that a Ranger brought with him The Law.
Most citizens of the New Texas Republic were spread out in small settlements away from the capital of Cooper. They lived in relative isolation and liked it that way. They paid their allotted taxes once a year, and sent their delegates to the required annual meeting, but otherwise they might as well have been in Kuba. They had their own traditions, rules…and laws. A Ranger frequently ran into trouble with bigamy, prostitution, and animal sacrifice. Sometimes they even encountered settlements offering human sacrifices to appease the Sun, or bring rain, or simply because their parents had done the same. None of these practices could be tolerated in a land struggling to maintain its population against the masses from the various Mexican Baronies to the south and the wild plainsmen to the north.
Austin saw smoke rising in the distance and figured he was close to New Hope. It was likely from a forge. A town this close to one of the old cities probably did well scavenging and trading metal. He pulled out an old weathered pair of binoculars and scanned the surrounding area. Through the haze, Austin could see cattle, sheep, and goats tended in scattered herds by young boys and girls. They carried metal rods to fight off wolves or boar and Austin knew they all were certainly deadly shots with their slings. Shepherds were good, he thought to himself. They knew how to fight off animals and protect their own. Fighting off men wasn’t that big a difference.
He rode forward slowly along the main north road. Nearly a mile ahead, Austin saw two figures separate from the herds and begin approaching him with easy rangy lopes. After several long minutes they came into closer view. Both were teenage boys, tall and thin, burned nearly brown by the fierce sun and wind. They wore a minimal amount of animals’ skins and were barefoot despite the rough blazing ground. Austin saw with approval that one of the two stopped about thirty yards away and loaded his sling while the other came closer.
Austin pulled up his horse and waited patiently as the boy eased forward with the metal rod held ready. It would have been comical if not for the fact that Austin was sure the boy watching could likely take his head off with a rock before he could run or shoot either of them. Both boys seemed far more interested in the horse than in Austin.
“I’m Captain Austin Reynolds of the Texas Rangers,” Austin said and the boy finally looked at his face. He drew back first at the deep ugly scar running parallel across Austin’s weathered face and then at the heavy revolver at the ranger’s belt.
Austin was afraid they might run or worse go at him with the sling. Even if they missed him, they might spook Ginger causing her to buck or maybe break a leg. “New Hope sent a message for help. Well, I’m it.”
The boy nodded, seeming to make up his mind. He turned to the other boy and waved him forward before looking back at the ranger. “I’m Dallas and that’s Jim. Glad you’re here. The Red Horde will be here in a week.”
Austin didn’t need to ask who the Red Horde was. It was surely one of the groups of raiders who came out of the plains to prey on farmers and ranchers in northern Texas. “Who do I need to talk to? You got a sheriff here?”
Dallas shook his head, “We did. Sheriff Taylor was killed in the last visit by the Horde. They took more than the agreed amount, he told ‘em that wasn’t fair, and they burned him in front of the town as a lesson to us.”
“And you all watched good I bet,” asked Austin growing cold and a little angry.
“Sure did,” answered Jim not catching the sarcasm, “made us all watch the whole time. Reverend Timmons cursed ‘em by The One True God and they made him watch as they burned the church. Then they blinded him.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Austin his face tight.
Dallas spoke up, “It was last year when they came.”
“Last year? So, what was your bloody hurry?” Austin asked through clenched teeth.
Jim looked confused, but Dallas was angry. “Look, mister, we ain’t fighters, we’re just farmers and shepherds and people trying to get by. Anyone says anything to the Red Horde and they kill them or take them away. It’s the time when they come every year and they’ll be here soon. It was the Sheriff’s job to mess with them, but now he’s gone so we need someone to do that for us. We need you to deal with them.”
“Deal with them?” asked Austin. “You want me to negotiate?”
Dallas looked confused again evidently not understanding the word. “We want you to talk to them, bargain for us. They’re hard men,” answered Dallas. “We don’t want any trouble or anyone to get hurt, just make them deal fair with us.”
Austin decided he wasn’t going to get any further and spurred Ginger past the boys towards the town at a gallop. Austin’s jaw clinched tight as did his hands on the reins and Ginger picking up the mood adding unnecessary speed.
The settlement took shape before him as he rode. The town was built around a crossroads where the north road intersected with the old east road. Buildings, homes, and shops lined the streets with vegetable and corn gardens in the rear. Austin slowed to a canter and heard the familiar clanging of a blacksmith. He passed the forge and saw a stocky muscular man hammering away at what would likely be a horseshoe or farm tool. A teenage boy held the hot metal with tongs while a slip of a girl that couldn’t have been more than six years old worked the bellows with practiced ease and precision. Few professions were more revered than a smith. Half the town probably made a living scavenging metal out of Amarillo to bring to this one man. He would in turn make the rusty junk into something useful and sell it to traders traveling the east road. Austin tipped his hat at the smith in respect as he rode past. The man looked up and without altering his rhythm nodded back between powerful blows.
Austin noticed that people were starting to watch him. Weary and curious eyes peered out windows. Men stopped their work to gaze at him suspiciously. The horse and the gun were powerful symbols, more so than the badge on his shirt. No one spoke or approached him and Austin continued on calmly. He spotted a large well ahead right in the middle of the crossroads. Austin also saw a gaunt figure by the well dressed in
a tattered black robe despite the heat leaning heavily on a staff. The dark figure seemed to be waiting for Austin, and the townsfolk began peering from this figure to Austin expectantly as they came closer together. The man gazed up at Austin as Ginger picked up her pace, smelling the water. Near the well, the ranger saw that where the dark figure should have eyes there was nothing but raw empty sockets.
The man suddenly spread his arms and began to shout, “’They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger!’” The man turned from Austin and appeared to be addressing the whole town, “In his anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.’” The man’s voice was almost hypnotic and filled with power and Austin felt his skin prickle.
Reverend Timmons tuned back to Austin and pointed his staff at him, “’Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the hands of these raiders!’” He smiled openly and blindly up at Austin and moved closer. Ginger spooked a little and started to step back, but Austin held her tightly in place by the reins. “Be welcome among this wicked people, ranger. The Lord has heard our distress and sent a judge to save us and remove our inequity.”
“Know where I can get a drink, old man?” asked Austin.
Timmons smiled. “But of course, this well behind me which the Lord has provided is filled with cool clean water.” The man motioned to his rear in a grand display.
“I was thinking of something a little bit stronger,” answered Austin.
Timmons nodded as if in understanding. “Aren’t we all, young man.” His voice took on its singsong tone again, “’The Lord said everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.’”