“I don’t think that you guys really had a handle on this.”
“True.”
Genie rapped her knuckles against the wooden handle of her hatchet, and everyone turned quickly.
Behind them was a group of figures closing quickly across the grass. Dave could make out ragged red clothing hanging off their bodies. More of concern to him were the sticks and clubs they wielded.
“Run!” Serif shouted.
The group turned and began to run full speed toward the distant line of houses. Dave’s legs pumped hard, kicking through the grass. Each time he brought a foot forward he could feel the vegetation drag against it. Each step pressed into the soft ground, following the trail Serif was carving.
Soon the grass gave way to packed earth and then to a clearing in the greenery. Dave could see subtle depressions where the grass was flattened, and as he was readying to call out a warning Serif came to a stop, his chest heaving.
“We can’t outrun them. Tony’s too slow.” Dave gulped at the air. “His ankle hurts.”
Serif nodded. “Stay away from the heavies. Use your weapons, stay together, and above all don’t stop fighting, or you’re dead,” he stated through ragged breaths.
Dave’s fist tightened around the handle of his blade. He had never used anything other than his fists, but it gave him confidence for the coming brawl.
Turning, he could see the men slowing to a stalking movement and working their way through the grass toward them, spreading out and flanking them. Dave counted ten attackers.
“These are not good odds,” Tony said.
“Just fight. No matter what. Fight,” Serif stated.
The four of them faced outward in a defensive ring against the rag-wrapped marauders. The smell was strong, like rotting meat. He could see that they were covered head to toe in red rags, tied tightly to their bodies save for a small space for their eyes. It gave a mummified look to their thin bodies.
A rasping breath came from the taller zealot. “Come with us. The queen wishes to speak to you. She sees all. She will give you her love.”
Dave watched as two picked their way through the depressions caused by the nearby heavies and came to within ten feet of him, just outside of lunging distance.
“Come with us.” the mummified man repeated. “You will be safe. There is no need to fight us. We are friends.”
“You don’t look too friendly,” Dave said, pointing his blade at the man.
“She wants you to be loved,” the man said, pulling a small, short pipe from his belt. His hand bent down to begin unwrapping the top.
Dave knew what was going to happen next, and he lunged forward, faking with his blade. The man raised his club to parry, and Dave drove a left jab into his jaw before lowering his weapon to cleave the man’s arm from his body. The mummified man simply stepped back and looked at the missing limb as his lifeblood gushed out onto the grass. Behind him, Dave heard Tony gasp at the sight.
Sidestepping an attack from a second zealot, Dave caught a heavy club against his ribs, but his foot found its mark and drove into the sternum of the next red man. Off balance, the man stepped backward enough that the gravity well caught him.
Dave watched as the man leaned forward, trying to escape, and folded to the ground. Dave could hear bones crack as ribs flattened, buckling under the pressure. A second later an impossibly flat outline of red rags that was once a human lay unmoving.
A clang of metal to his left brought him back to the fight, and he could see Tony stepping backward from two men. The man swung wildly with the improvised blade as Serif and Genie worked against the remainder of the crowd. Dave waited for the men attacking Tony to turn their backs. With their focus locked on to his friend, Dave stepped in and chopped them down like firewood. Each time the handle jarred as the metal connected with bone. He swung hard against their backs and necks until they dropped one by one.
“You okay?” Dave asked.
“Behind you,” Tony said, stepping forward.
Dave turned and jumped out of the way as a sharpened broomstick thrust forward. The splintered end tore Dave’s shirt and skimmed past his abdomen. Dave’s free hand exploded outward and grabbed the wood handle, holding it tight, so another thrust was impossible; his weapon hand swung down hard. The sharp metal edge caught the zealot in the neck.
The wood handle was dropped. Letting go, Dave expected it to fall to the ground, but it remained floating in the air. Turning, he could see Tony holding the shaft as it stuck out of his abdomen. Wincing, the skinny man lowered himself to the ground, lying on his side. Dave could see the look on his face as he tried to yell out in pain.
Stepping forward to help, Dave felt a blow to the back of his head and fell forward, stumbling, tripping over his friend. Bright lights flared in his vision. His feet stumbled, and his knee drove hard into the rocky ground, flaring with pain. The blade tumbled from his grip.
Dave scrambled, fighting to regain his footing. He turned in time to lift his arm and catch a blow in his armpit. Dave felt the ribs crack as the muscle compressed, driving the air out of him. The oak baseball bat swung a second time, this time for his head.
He dodged to the side, and the wood thudded against the ground. Dave leaned his weight on it, trapped the bat, and mashed his fist against the man’s nose, feeling it buckle. The bat fell to the ground.
Dave grabbed the handle of the bat and saw his blade lying next to him. Opting for the more deadly weapon, he snapped it up in his hand and attempted to raise his blade to finish the man, but his arm was only able to lift waist-height. Pain and weakness in his shoulder radiated up his neck and into his back each time he moved it.
The red zealot had regained his footing and lunged toward Dave. Quickly switching hands, Dave held out the weapon and pushed the tip into the fabric wrappings of the man’s chest and twisted before dragging the blade sideways.
The mummified man stepped back, pulling himself off the steel, and stumbled away, giving up the fight. Dave watched him stagger for a moment and then collapse.
Looking for other threats, he rose to his feet. Serif had dispatched two and was fighting with a third while Genie was snagged in a heavy netting and was unmoving. Two men were dragging her away, at almost a running pace.
Stepping forward, Dave took advantage of their burden and put his good shoulder into the one on the left, driving him toward another heavy. The man stopped himself in time, but his foot had been put forward, and his shin snapped in half as the portion inside was exposed to the amplified weight.
The other zealot lashed out with what looked like a carved plank of wood, and Dave ducked, tackling the man to the ground. Again he tried to raise his right arm to strike, but it hung weakly at his side. The man pushed back, and Dave felt the impossible strength throw him off.
Landing on his back, the air heaved out of his lungs. Keeping his grip, Dave clung to his blade, waiting for the man to press the advantage.
A flicker of light like a swarm of bees enveloped the zealot’s head and in a bright flash disappeared, along with the everything above the man’s neck. The torso stood upright for a moment before unsteadily collapsing and spurting its contents everywhere with a sickening lapping noise. The smell of cooked meat filled Dave’s nose.
Dave, confused, lowered the blade and moved toward Serif. He stepped by the slowly breathing body of Genie, but before he could cross the distance Serif parried a blow and in the following motion drove home the machete. The shrouded jaw exploded in thick red fluid.
The man leaned backward and stumbled, trying to escape as his blood pumped out quickly onto the ground. Stepping weakly, the zealot fell, collapsing silently.
“Is that all of them?” Dave asked, turning to survey the battlefield.
“I counted ten? There is one more.”
A figure rose a few metres away from the grass and began to run back from the direction they had travelled.
Realizing that Tony was not standing, Dave turned and ran to his in
jured friend. “Tony!”
The skinny man still was wearing his light blue button shirt, but the impaled shaft had turned it a saturated red. His friend’s eyes were unfocused and stared off into the distance.
“No… No! No!” Dave tore Tony’s shirt off and stuffed it around the hole, attempting to stem the flow of blood, but the hard-distended abdomen told him that something was terribly wrong.
Serif’s hands reached in and felt Tony’s neck for a pulse while his other felt for any sign of breathing. They sat there waiting for any sign of life and Dave looked to the man with pleading eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Serif stated sadly. “Your friend is dead.”
Serif stood, walking toward Genie to check on his own.
Dave sat there, confused. He had never seen anyone die, let alone have to watch a friend disappear in front of him.
Guilt flowed over him as he realized now he had not been able to save two people; his sister and now Tony.
His throat tightened, and he looked up jealously as Serif pulled back the netting. Genie’s hand came up, and Serif pulled the woman to her unsteady feet. She touched her head, and Serif inspected the open wound from the bludgeoning.
Dave’s good arm lay on his friend’s shoulder, and he sobbed.
Serif and Genie gave him a few moments. Eventually, he was empty. The sadness was still there, but he had nothing left in him to cry with.
Hatred built in his stomach. He despised the attackers for what they had taken from him. It didn’t matter if they were some sort of odd cult or rich kids in the bathroom doing lines, they were all the same now: aberrations that needed to be scraped off the face of the planet.
“Your shoulder is dislocated,” Serif said. “We need to fix it before it swells.”
“We need to bury him,” Dave said.
Genie shook her head and pointed to the man still running in the distance.
“She’s right; he is going to bring more people. We need to get across the bridge before dark. Lie down.”
Dave lay down next to his friend and looked at the dead man.
Serif grabbed Dave’s wrist and raised his hand perpendicular to the ground.
“Sorry, Tony,” Dave stated.
Serif lifted and turned, there was intense pain, and then a thick “clunk” as the joint fell back into its anatomical position. The pain from the shoulder almost disappeared, and Dave sighed with the change.
“Thanks, Serif,” Dave said weakly, sitting up.
“It will hurt for a few days. We will have to sling it,” Serif said.
“We need to do something for Tony,” Dave insisted.
“There’s no time for a burial, Dave.”
Dave stood and removed the blanket from Tony’s bag. Serif and Genie helped roll the body into the material. After a short discussion, they agreed that the only way his body wouldn’t be interfered with was to put it into one of the nearby gravity wells.
Lifting him, they swung the body and at the same time released their travelling companion into the depression. The body entered and as expected was compressed downward into the soil underneath.
Dave stood watching. He wanted to do more. It seemed heartless just to walk away.
“It’s time to go,” Serif said. “Honour him by surviving.”
Dave picked up his bag and blade and followed. In a daze, he matched their path through the grass.
The light above them was dimming again.
Chapter 14
Dave tried not to think about how they were walking away from Tony’s body. The growing darkness was mirroring his mood, and he barely noticed the properties of the ground around him changing with each step.
The grasslands built over the next few hours to a slight rise in the ground. Flattened blades of grass on the trail gave way to a sterile brown-purple hard-packed earth. Part of his mind noted it as similar to the soil they had found in the tunnel. The path was still flanked by grass, but it had grown taller, almost chest height. A mix of weeds and yellow flowers displaced it in numerous places.
Coming to the top of the rise, Dave lifted his head. In the dwindling light, he could see the next ring of buildings rising like broken teeth against the grey backdrop.
“We can’t stay indoors tonight. We will hide in the grass, a ways off the trail. They will expect us to continue to the city.”
“They?” Dave said. “You still think they are following?”
“No, they are waiting for us. The queen already knows we are here.”
“Why us… me? I mean, why does it matter that we are here?”
“I don’t know… maybe she perceives you as a threat. Maybe you have something she needs,” Serif stated. He turned at a sharp angle away from the path, feeling through the grass with his blade, searching for pockets of heavy gravity in the dark.
“None of this makes sense…” Dave said, watching his footing in the dark.
“We will stop here.”
“What about your other friend? The archer?” Dave asked.
“He will meet us at the bridge.”
Dave squatted down in the grass next to Serif and Genie. “There’s a bridge?”
“Quiet now. Stay silent until morning. Get your rest. The grass will hide us, but you must not speak.”
Dave nodded in the dark, realizing afterward that the man probably couldn’t see the gesture. Ever so slowly, the complete darkness crept in. Dave wrapped himself in his blanket, putting his head down on the pack.
The breeze was stronger now, and Dave could feel it blowing his hair. Lying down in the tall grass, he stared blindly at the wall of blackness. His hand came out in front of him, and he wiggled his fingers. Nothing. Not even an outline.
The strong breeze swished the grass. Despite his hardest efforts to stay awake in case of another attack, exhaustion overtook him. Dave sank into a deep dreamless sleep.
* * *
The smell of a small cooking fire roused him. The grey light was fading in. A small metal pan sizzled meat in the centre, with a pile of eggs.
“Good morning,” Serif said to Dave almost cheerfully.
“Morning,” Dave said, sitting up, for the first time in two days considering how empty his stomach was.
He almost turned to wake Tony. Dave’s heart sank at the idea that his friend was no longer with them. It would take a long time to get over the loss. It sat like a lead weight in his stomach mixing with the guilt.
Distracting himself from the feeling, he looked out across the top of the grass. He could see that the three of them were quite a distance from the path. Travellers passed by, some with massive loads on their backs. Others wheeled hand carts.
“Who are they?” Dave pointed.
“Normal people, likely.” Serif picked up the pan with a rag and handed the pan to Dave. “Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Serif offered the food again with a stern look. “You won’t honour your friend by punishing yourself for what others did. Keep your strength for the next fight.”
Reluctantly, Dave reached at first with his right hand and winced at the shoulder discomfort before adjusting to use his left.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Dave replied, wrapping his sweater around the warm pan’s edge.
“We have already eaten. You needed the rest. We let you sleep. Besides, that’s the last of the food.”
Dave wished he had a fork but used his hands, picking the meat out of the pan to taste its savoury flavour.
“That’s not bacon,” Dave said between bites.
“What’s bacon?” Serif asked, turning to Dave.
“Pig. It’s made from pig meat.”
“I have never seen a pig. I have heard of them. Fat pink four-legged animals. I read a book once about one that talked.”
“They don’t talk.”
“The one in the book did. What about fly? Can they fly? I’ve seen pictures, but they don’t look like they can fly.”
“Nope.” Dave chuckled. “Pigs don’t
fly.”
Serif seemed troubled by the last revelation.
“So what is this?” Dave asked again, scooping the last of it into his mouth.
“Cat,” Serif stated as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Dave hesitated for a moment and contemplated the repercussions before tipping the pan up greedily into his mouth. Serif stomped out the small fire and picked up his bag.
Dave finished chewing and collected up his bedroll. A few moments later they were back on the path with a quicker step. Dave appreciated the food and the extra sleep and was beginning feel more focused on the task at hand. He felt more decisive about their goal, despite what had happened the day before. Serif was right; he couldn’t honour Tony by quitting. He needed to see things through to the end.
It didn’t stop him from thinking about the violence of the fight the previous day. Dave thought about the zealots and their red cloth. He recalled how the one had looked standing over top of him — like a red mummy from some horror movie.
Then the swirling light had taken the man’s head. Like an angry swarm of bees, appearing out of the air twisting around the zealot, before the body fell away headless.
He thought about it for a while as they walked. it didn’t make sense to him. Working up the courage, he spoke to Serif. “What about the lights yesterday?” Dave asked.
“What lights?” Serif asked.
“Didn’t you see that one guy? His head just disappeared in the light. Was that something you did?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Serif eyed Dave with concern.
Genie raised an eyebrow and made a circular motion around her ear with a single finger. Serif laughed. “It’s likely.”
Dave decided to keep it to himself. Pressing the matter would only make him seem less stable.
Passing random people on the ever-widening road, Dave tightened his grip on his sheathed blade. Each time they neared anyone with red sewn into their clothing, he held his breath, waiting for an attack.
None of them appeared like the zealots, and most didn’t hazard more than a second glance.
Soon the grass gave way to a heavy packed earth, and a sulfur-like quality to the air began to build, despite the growing wind.
The Black Page 11