Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  Still not wanting to break the silence, she pointed over to the wreckage of their fire as she got to her feet. Her limbs protested at staying in one position without moving in the cold night air and she limped to the circle and began digging out the charred wood. Jair blocked out what light the night provided when he knelt beside her and began digging the pit again.

  They still needed to eat, but Faela wanted nothing more than to crawl under the shelter and sleep, but she had traveled long enough to know that she had to replace the energy she had spent that day.

  Once they had the fire going again, they sat side-by-side munching on strips of jerky and hard white cheese in silence. Faela had emptied her water skin into a cook pot to heat it up for tea, one of the few luxuries she had allowed herself to carry. She stared into the small fire as something occurred to her.

  Gnawing on the dried salty meat, Faela finally voiced her realization. “You know, I have good hearing.”

  “Yeah?” Jair cut off some of the cheese and popped it into his mouth.

  “I have very good hearing and I’m paranoid, but I didn’t hear anything before you put out the fire. I didn’t hear anything until a little while after the fire was out.” Faela poked at the cook pot snuggled into the embers with a stick. “How did you know they were there?”

  “You didn’t hear the horses?” he asked surprised as he ripped off a hunk of jerky with his teeth. “They weren’t exactly stealthy.”

  Faela leaned into her knees and hovered her palm over top of the water. The steam curled around her fingers and she held them suspended, letting her joints soak in the warmth. When she finally pulled them back, her fingertips felt singed. Sucking on her middle finger to cool the burning sensation, she considered Jair’s explanation.

  As she watched the boy, who was barely a man, next to her, she wiped her hand off on her coat before measuring some loose tea into her scraped-up palm. The incongruity still nagged at her, a single cracking twig would have alerted her to their approach. She had traveled alone and off the roads for long enough to know when someone approached her camps, but there had been nothing. As Jair smiled benignly into the fire chewing on his jerky, she decided for now to just be thankful that he had noticed.

  She nudged the cook pot out of the embers with her stick and sprinkled in the leaves to steep. Brushing off her hands, she said, “Well after the innkeeper’s warning and those riders, I’ll take first watch.”

  “You’re exhausted,” Jair objected as the first misting of rain began dripping through the leaves and needles.

  One fat drop dangled off the brim of her hat and sparkled in the firelight before plopping onto her hand. “I’d rather be tired then dead.”

  The forest slumbered in darkness as the unseen rustling of nocturnal life whispered through the night. Kade strode in isolated silence through the trees. He stopped and dropped to a knee. His hand hovered over the debris-strewn ground. Pushing aside a dry, crinkled leaf, he lightly traced the surface of the soil and rubbed the dirt between his fingers. He stood and continued forward.

  The wind blew through the forest cold and damp, causing him to shudder and shove his hands under his armpits. Even at the end of summer, the nights in the foothills of the Higini would rob a soul of any warmth. Whistling through the leaves, the breeze carried the scent of wet clay to his nose and he could hear the clear tinkle of water breaking over rocks. The brush grew denser here, but Kade navigated a nigh invisible path through the brambles. Pushing the springy branches of a sapling aside, he stepped into the clearing at the bank of a creek.

  The moonlight shone, illuminating the world in a soft silver light that the trees had previously hidden. With a break in the clouds, he was exposed beneath the stars. Closing his eyes, he tilted back his head. Solitude surrounded him and he smiled.

  Snapping his eyes open, he found a grouping of three misshapen rocks, worn smooth by seasonal flooding, a dozen feet from the bank. He passed the rocks and headed straight for a cluster of evergreens to his left. Their lowest branches wove a thick veil of needles that hid the ground beneath from sight.

  Kade crouched and parted them. A solitary, orange, leather circle lay amongst the discarded needles. There was nothing else. Heavy clouds pushed by unseen winds blotted out the bright light of the stars and the moon. Kade grimaced. Those clouds held rain.

  He dropped the branches. Looking over his shoulder to the north, the direction he had last seen Faela and Jair heading, he rested his elbows on his knees and put his forehead in his hands. “Fantastic. That lying blighter took it.”

  Focusing his rising anger, Kade calmed his nerves. He pushed aside the branches again and grabbed the leather medallion. Lying in his hand, he saw the stamp of a sword consumed by fire. Just as he felt a drop of rain hit his ear, he closed his eyes and reached for the fire within himself. Heat licked his body as the flames inside him grew. Within his mind, a light whipped like a crack of lightning, shooting away from him and out of sight. An orange glow pulsed along the forest floor. Kade had a trail.

  *****

  Chapter Three

  The night had passed without further incident and Faela kicked Jair awake before dawn, not that she could tell when the sun rose with the clouds socking in the mountains around them. While searching for water as they waited for the fire to burn down, Jair had found some berries to eat with their porridge. With the damp chill having seeped into their skin, they welcomed the hot breakfast. Unfortunately, Jair had only managed to find enough water to fill their skins and make their meal, so they couldn’t even clean up before they started out and Faela felt like she had grown a second skin of dried sweat and dirt.

  Once they did finish packing up the camp, the day entered the odd half-light of dawn and they left the safety of their hollow.

  Not long after the sun had risen behind the clouds, Faela said, “We’ll be crossing the border in another league or two. Last chance to turn back.”

  Jair hitched the straps of his pack up higher on his shoulders. “No such luck, my fair one. You’re stuck with me.”

  Though Faela would never admit it aloud, she had hoped he would choose stay. His unsinkable good humor helped to keep away her darker thoughts, but she had felt obligated to give him the opportunity to go before leaving behind the relative safety of Taronpia. Turning, she favored him with a smile and they continued their hike through the forest that was turning steeper and rockier with every step they took.

  It was late morning before they reached the border. Though she could see no discernible difference between where they stood now in Taronpia and that invisible line that meant they had crossed into the territory of the northernmost kingdom, Nabos, she could feel the border like a high-pitched ringing in her ears, a fading remnant of the war. Before the war, the border had been nothing but a division of the countries’ lands, but several years into the conflict the Virds had pressed the Phaidrians of Lanvirdis into military service. They erected a barrier along the border that knit the life of the forest itself into a tight net of energy. Faela had only been a young girl when it happened, but the stories of men turning to ash still made her shudder even now.

  The barrier had been dissolved in the years following the ceasefire and the treaty, but she could still feel the tingle of the energy on her skin as they approached. As she prepared to continue the climb, she realized that Jair no longer walked beside her. Looking down the incline, she saw Jair standing still as though his flesh had turned to marble; even his lips had lost their color.

  “It gives me the shivers too,” she reassured him. “Everyone one can feel it, even the ungifted. Everyone can sense that something unnatural happened here.” When he didn’t move, she trotted down the slope and skidded to a halt next to him causing a tiny avalanche of stones and pebbles. “I promise, nothing’s left of the barrier. We’ll be fine.”

  Jair tore his gaze away and even though Faela stood above him, he still looked down on her. Scratching his scalp with both hands, his light brown hair stuck out f
rom the tousling and he said, “Right. Yeah, let’s go.”

  “Good man,” she said with a slap on his arm before she scrambled back up the hill.

  They made their way through the barrier without incident, but it felt like standing too close to a lightning strike as they passed through and the ringing turned into a shrieking. When Faela was sure she could bear no more, it faded back to the soft ringing. They made it through.

  Faela clambered sideways up the incline as she reached where it plateaued. Turning around, she placed her hands on her hips and bent over to catch her breath. “See, nothing. I told you we’d be fine.”

  Jair took her outstretched arm as he hopped onto the level ground with her. His color had returned and so had his smile. “I shall never doubt you again.”

  “As it should be, my lad,” she said with a jab at his side. “Well, no lollygagging now. Off we go.”

  They continued along the level, but rocky path for half a league before it turned to the right and hugged the cliffs. Jair began whistling to himself having regained his wind after the extended climb. “So, Faela,” he began.

  “Yeah?” she asked trying to get a look around the bend when she felt that same stab of malice she had felt last night and dropped to a crouch. “Jair, get down,” she hissed grabbing for him, but she was too late.

  A wide, muscular man came around the bend leading with his fist. It caught Jair in the chest, knocking his legs and his breath from him. He hit the ground hard and Faela could hear his head bounce off the rocks. She prayed the fall had only knocked him unconscious. Red mist flashed in her eyes as she checked to see if his skull and neck had fractured. They were intact. He was fine, unconscious, but fine for now. Though if they survived this, she didn’t envy the headache that awaited him.

  Her attention focused on Jair, she missed that the man had closed on her until it was too late.

  “None of that now, little miss,” he said capturing her hand that had gone for her boot as he held onto her other arm. “We don’t want no trouble. We just want whatever valuable baubles and coins you and your man got. That be all. Like this,” he said releasing her arm to hook the silver medallion around her neck with a swollen, knuckled finger.

  Faela looked past him and saw that he had friends, several friends. But even immobile, Faela was far from helpless.

  “No,” she said in a steady voice as she clamped down on her fear. “Anything else, just not that.”

  “Anything?” he said licking his bottom lip. He looped the chain around his fingers drawing her closer, when he noticed the vial. “Shit.” He let go of her and backed away putting his sword between them. “She’s a Tereskan,” he called back to his fellows.

  “Darkness,” one of the men with pinched, close set eyes and greasy blonde hair swore, “kill her quick. I don’t want my guts on the outside.”

  Faela balanced on the balls of her feet, waiting. Without warning, the man advanced with an efficient thrust of the blade and had Faela not gained so many bruises from sparring with her brother, he would have killed her with that strike. As it was when she dropped to her side, he still managed to catch her above her hip. Her hat fell, bouncing to the ground. The thick fabric of her coat and the direction of her fall alone had kept it from slicing open her torso. Biting down on her lip until it too bled, she muffled her cry. The wound felt like it was on fire, but she knew that if she stopped moving she was dead.

  She didn’t stay down for long. Before the man could prepare for another strike, she rose bringing her knee up between his legs with as much force as she could throw behind it. The man cursed and backhanded her. Chips of loose rock fell down her collar as she slammed into the cliff her head ringing and dazed.

  “This bitch is mine.” The man wheezed doubled over in pain. “No witnesses; kill the boy.”

  The greasy blonde loosed his sword and kicked Jair over onto his back. He raised the sword.

  “Stop!” Faela commanded using all the strength of her voice. Her eyes sparked with a deep scarlet and she reached out her hand. Angry red lines swirled on her palm and she gazed at the blonde. He froze paralyzed and the sword clattered from his hand and a drop of blood fell from his nose. Faela closed her palm into a fist and the man fell to his knees, his back beginning to buck with tremors that threw him to the ground.

  Kade sniffed the stagnate air. The break in the rain he had enjoyed for the last few leagues wouldn’t last much longer. Though the sun had risen hours before, the day seemed trapped in a gray twilight. The world felt penned in by bluish-black clouds that pressed in close, while indigo slashes of light seeped through the blanket of those swollen clouds. The air seemed to hold back a restrained violence. Glancing at the sky, Kade increased his gait as he jogged up the rocky hill.

  He wanted this business concluded before that rain let loose again. Thoughts of a soft, warm, and, more importantly, dry bed kept him moving. Though this was hardly the first time he’d sacrificed sleep by tracking through the night, it didn’t mean that he liked repeating the practice. Early that morning, he had run across a camp abandoned with its fire still smoldering, but it showed signs of six or seven inhabitants with horses, not a man and a woman traveling on foot. Though the trail he had followed all night did cross with those from the camp and continued in the same direction toward the border. He had passed the border not long ago and even after all these years it still made his skin crawl.

  The tracking spell blazed like the setting sun. He was close. Kade reached the top of the hill when he heard a noise that caused his stomach to convulse. A woman’s voice cried out for someone to stop. That one word seemed to drive out all other sound in the woods, leaving behind a tense silence.

  Reacting instinctively, he ran toward the scream, knife already drawn. He slowed as he approached the bend created by the cliff rising above him. Crouching low, he saw a long-limbed man crumpled on the ground and another lay thrashing, afflicted by some unseen force. Several more men stood, weapons in hand.

  A stocky man with a thick neck held a sword loosely, blood fell from its tip. He addressed his prey, a woman who slumped against the cliff. “Now that were mighty stupid, you little bitch. You should’ve been a good girl. Don’t make me hurt you no more.” A wicked delight sparked in his eyes at the thought of causing her pain.

  The woman’s wavy hair tumbled into her face, but could not hide the blood oozing from the jagged gash on her cheek, nor could it hide the blood that stained her mouth. She stared at the man standing over her with a calm hate. Her eyes flashed a dark scarlet and the man who thrashed on the ground made a strangled gurgling noise, then his back arched and his body went limp.

  “You Tereskan bitch!” the man yelled and raised his sword to strike. She remained motionless, staring at the bandit with serene resolution. Though she made no outward move to defend herself, the air around her crackled.

  Flipping the knife in his hand, Kade found the balance and let it fly. Before the man could utter a sound, he pitched forward with the dagger buried in his back. The woman rolled away in time to avoid being trapped beneath the falling corpse. Her face contorted in pain and her hand went to her side smeared with blood.

  The other bandits stared, frozen, unable to process the sudden change in their situation. Unarmed, Kade rushed the man nearest to him whose braid fell past the small of his back. The braided man swung clumsily with his sword. Kade evaded its wide arch easily as he dropped to the ground and kicked behind the man’s knees. His foe hit the ground, gasping as the breath was forced out of him. Kade brought down his heel onto the jaw of the inert man with a wet crunch.

  A black blur moved in Kade’s peripheral vision. Grabbing the hilt of the fallen sword, he rolled to his feet in time to divert the strike of his next opponent down his blade as his body moved out of its arch, but the impact knocked the blade from his grasp.

  “Kade, behind you!” the woman yelled her voice hoarse with pain. She lifted herself off the ground with her elbows.

  Whirling, Kade do
dged, avoiding the swing of the advancing steel, but was left off balance. Ignoring the opening, the man in black left Kade to his companion and approached the woman. Kade swung his pack from off his back and threw it at the remaining man using the momentum to spin and bring around the back of his fist to strike him in the temple. As the man fell, Kade looked at the woman for the first time.

  “Faela?” he asked, his brain processing sluggishly in the midst of fighting. Shaking his head, he recovered. “Get up, blast it!”

  As if compensating for its earlier absence, the wind returned with a howling blast. Leaves ripped off the trees and the debris on the floor of the forest swirled in a violent dance. Faela did not hesitate, her hand slipped around the vial at her chest. The bandit was closing the gap. Kade would not reach them in time.

  Seeing no other alternative, Kade hefted the sword reversing his grip, tested its balance, and threw the blade at the man’s back, willing it to hit. It shimmered orange like a hot ember and connected with a cracking thunk and the man fell.

  Kade’s triumph, however, was short lived. A searing pain exploded in his chest. He looked down and the glint of metal caught his eye. The tip of a sword peeked through his vest. A drop of rain landed on the back of his neck and slid down his shirt. The first of the rain had fallen.

  The man behind Kade laughed coarsely and whispered in his ear, “Guess you should’ve left the girl to us and minded your own business, friend.”

  Kade coughed causing blood to trickle from the side of his mouth and laughed, a bubbling laugh. He reached behind him, gripped the man’s head, and twisted with one swift motion. The body slumped to the ground like a sack of grain.