by Jay Swanson
John took his brother's uncertainty as his chance and parried one of Ardin's counter-blows in an arc. This forced Ardin's sword back behind him, leaving John free to bring his own blade to bear on his exposed shoulder. But Ardin ducked, the blade whizzing past his ear. He knew it was a risky maneuver but he pulled it off with surprising grace as he dropped to his knees and laid his sword in the mud. Coiled like a fat lady's bed spring, Ardin lowered his head and lunged forward, butting his now off-balance brother in the chest and sending him sprawling.
He scrambled back towards the stream for his sword, catching it just as it tipped over the edge of the waterfall. Springing to his feet he heard his brother's voice behind him,
“Time to die little one.”
He wheeled around to defend himself, but only served to present his chest for a kick that sent him flying over the cliff. Ardin had jumped off of this cliff a number of times and into the pool below, but he'd never been kicked off it. He didn't much like it.
He hit the water with the full impact of a train hitting a melon cart, flat on his back. The wind in his lungs made its exit. This proved unfortunate as he soon found himself six feet under water without a good source of oxygen to draw on. Desperation kicked in as he attempted to rise to the surface.
He wasn't sure if it was the lack of air or the boot print, but his chest felt like it wanted to explode, which was odd considering it was empty. The words of his mother echoed in his head as it tried to pound his brain into oblivion; he hoped she wouldn't have to kill him.
Ardin didn't notice the resonance of the impact as another body introduced itself to the water. He did notice the arms that grabbed him roughly and thrust him towards the surface. He gasped for air; sucking it in so violently he coughed it back out before it did him any good. He started paddling for the shore. His brother finally grabbed his collar and pulled him roughly through the water until he dragged him on dry land.
They both lay there in the sun for a while, coughing and wheezing and sounding generally miserable. Clouds passed overhead as their floating swords bumped gently into the rocks on the shore just past them.
“I suppose we should collect our gear.” John said finally.
“I suppose you shouldn't be such a dick.”
They lay there for a while longer in silence. Finally John started to chuckle to himself, then to laugh outright.
“What's so damn funny?”
“It's just that–” John covered his mouth for a second before bursting again. “Your face. I keep seeing the look on your face when I kicked you.” He cracked up again, meeting the smoldering eyes of his little brother. “You looked so stupid!”
Ardin rolled to his knees and started pounding on his brother, who covered himself as best he could while he kept laughing. Finally John stopped laughing and tried to push his brother off.
“Wait wait wait.” He sat up in all seriousness, shoving Ardin off of him. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear wha-”
“Shhh! Shut up.”
John got to one knee and peered out across the pond, straining to hear. A light concussion came rolling across the hills, followed by the sound of a dull, crackly thud.
“What the he-”
“Shut up!” John motioned his brother to silence. Another concussion rolled through the hills. “What does that second one sound like to you?”
“Kind of like static.”
“Yeah.” John looked at the ground and furrowed his brow. “You remember how that article described the new weapon the army developed to take out a town's electricity before it bombarded it? Ruin their communications?”
“The EMP artillery rounds.” Ardin always remembered those things. “A shell with a charge set off by kinetic energy, like the final impact, that would send out a small electromagnetic pulse and disable any operating electrical systems within something like twenty yards.”
“I didn't need the encyclopedia definition, thanks.”
Another concussion came to them across the pond. Sometimes the army would run exercises in the mountains but they never used live artillery rounds.
“You think they're experimenting with it somewhere nearby?” John asked, but Ardin didn't have time to answer before a loud explosion rumbled through the trees.
They jumped to their feet and ran to the top of the ridge as more explosions boomed from the valley beyond. They raced through the trees, jumping the stream and coming out the other side to where they could see the watchtower on the ridge farther on to their left. Smoke was rising from just beyond it in big billowing black plumes. The boys simply stood wide eyed, uncertain of what they were seeing. Another boom cracked and echoed through the valley, much louder now than when they'd been below.
“Oh God,” John said under his breath. “They're shelling our home.”
FOUR
LEVANTON WAS BURNING. General Troy Silvers stood surveying the carnage. He remained back on the main road running laterally along the foothills and away from the village. A tall, dark, menacing figure standing on the low wall built to keep stray wagons from going over the steep slope behind him.
He didn't need to get any closer; he'd seen enough death in his days. His men were filing out of the village. Half of the battalion had been sent silently behind it to encircle it and catch anyone trying to escape the massacre. His men didn't know why they were doing what they were doing. All they needed to know was that it amounted to the security of the City States and they did their jobs.
A gaunt, wraithlike colonel approached the general. He had to look up at the general as he stood motionless on the short wall.
“Sir, she's not here.” He handed the general a large picture of a woman. Silvers tucked it into his short, trim jacket without looking at it. “None of the men found any women of her description, sir.”
“You're certain?”
“Certain as one can be, sir.” The colonel was Silvers' right hand man, loyal and sharp. “Unless one of the shells took her out, no one saw any sign.”
“Your men executed everyone in the village.”
“Every last traitor sir.”
The colonel took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. His tall, thick collar was rubbing into his neck and itching in the heat.
“I never would have taken Levanton to harbor such scum, let alone refuse to give it up at the cost of their own lives.”
“Few would have, Colonel.” Silvers dropped lightly to the ground next to the colonel as the battalion lined up in formation to move out. “Send a few teams to sweep the area one last time.”
“Aye sir, no sense letting any of the filth escape.”
“No.” The general glanced at his most loyal officer, “Your battalion performed impeccably today, Colonel.”
“Thank you sir.” The colonel straightened in recognition of the compliment. “But as always, true credit is due to your superior tacti-”
“That will do, Colonel.” Silvers dismissed the compliments, waving his hand lightly. There was little glory in laying waste to a mountain village.
“Aye sir.”
The colonel turned and walked back towards the troops, grabbing a captain and curtly passing down orders. Silvers turned and faced up the slope along the wide road, it's stone surface smooth. Few ruts had worked their way into the roads this high up, he noticed. People hadn't used trucks much up here, it seemed like they were only really used in the cities and on farms in the plains.
He frowned as the picture in his shirt rustled against his chest, reminding him of its presence. Where was that girl?
The battalion began to march past the general and up the hill, roughly a thousand soldiers strong. They had another few miles to go this day. The artillery down on the hills below was being dismantled. They didn't have time to wait for it to catch up so it would be sent home. He paused and watched as his troops marched by, a sad pride welling up inside of him. Turning, Silvers walked with the troops and listened to the sergeants bellow their orders. The Cave lay on
ly a couple of hours march to the northeast. The boots of his soldiers synced in rhythm. He smiled.
Behind them a village burned; before them a witch lay in wait.
The whole area filled with smoke and falling embers. The stench of burning flesh and hair was staining the crisp summer air irreparably. John pulled ahead of Ardin, jumping over fallen logs and the dry creek bed below the watchtower. He climbed, sometimes on all fours, desperate to get to the top of the ridge.
Ardin had a little more trouble. He hadn't really recovered from his fall into the pond and was breathing hard. He climbed after his brother, but John had crested the top before Ardin was even half-way up. Wheezing, he caught up to John and doubled over to grasp his knees. He coughed and stood as he raised the inside of his elbow to his mouth. What lay in the valley below was beyond his ability to fully comprehend. Something inside him pulsed hard and he vomited as he dropped to the ground next to his brother.
John stood motionless for a minute, until he stumbled as if he too would drop to the ground. He grabbed onto a tree to stabilize himself. The village was burning. It looked as though hell had come to earth and had entered through Levanton. The cottages and houses were collapsing as fire consumed them completely. Loud cracking noises could be heard for miles as pockets of sap in rafters were discovered by prodding flames and exploded. Not a single building in sight was left untouched.
Finally John's eyes came to rest on their little home, roof still standing, smoke pouring out of the upper windows. He pulled himself together and started down the hill as fast as he could, bracing himself on solid ground where he found it and running the rest as gravity pulled him towards the valley. Ardin called after him but he didn't hear it. The slope began to level and John took off in a dead sprint, vaulting logs and boulders. He slid to a halt at the edge of the final slope that led to their small plot of land.
He looked around for a sign of whoever did this. There wasn't a sound outside of the pops and cracks of burning homes. He saw no movement. It was as if the whole world had been scorched and he was all that was left to witness it. Certain he was alone he left the trees to slide down the embankment and make for the house. Running low but quickly, he darted between broken down farm implements to cover his passage. Soon he stood in the flickering shadow of his home, its outline obscured by the flickering light of the raging fires.
Oblivious to the embers landing around him he tried to yell, to call out, to see if anyone was alive. The knot in his throat choked his words. He strained to say something. Anything. All that came were streams of tears, cleaving clean beds through fields of ash on his cheeks. Through the tears and waves of heat emanating from the fires, he saw something on the door, something metal, though it had been dulled by the grime of the fire. It looked almost like a chain.
Lights flashed in front of his eyes as his head threatened to explode. The ground came up at him with surprising speed. Before he knew it, he was on the ground staring at two pairs of thick leather boots.
“Stupid little bastard.” He heard a gruff voice that must have belonged to the boots that were moving. “Should've stayed out in the forest.”
“You doin' this one or am I?”
“I did the last one.” The voices were fading in and out, sounding close one second and miles away the next. “I didn't sign up to shoot kids anyways.”
“Bah, he's barely a kid any more by the looks of 'em.”
Something made a metallic clacking noise as the boots shifted their weight. It sounded foreign and vaguely familiar all at once. The ground seemed to be getting warmer, it was inviting. John could feel himself drifting.
“These mountain folk are all backwards anyways, hardly have electricity up here. You know that? I don't think I saw more than three cars this whole time!”
“Jus' plug 'em and get on with it.” The voice was getting impatient, but they were fading in John's mind. Brightly colored swirls were twisting and dancing in his field of vision.
“I'm jus' sayin'.” The other voice continued, “How can you respect a folk that don't look to improve their own lives none with the advent of new technology? Ain't right.”
“What's advent?”
“Somethin' to do with trains.”
“C'mon man, it's gettin' hot.”
John felt pressure on his back as one of the boots disappeared from view. Everything had grown distant, the voices kept talking for a minute but he couldn't make it out, nor did he care. There was a yell as from miles away, and three shots rang out as blackness took him completely.
Ardin had stumbled after his brother as quickly as he could, but the smoke was playing havoc with his headache. The vomit on his pants was quickly covered by ash as tiny embers danced through the foliage. He coughed some more, no longer certain what was to blame. Reaching the embankment that bordered their land, he slumped down next to a small tree just as his brother was making it to their house.
He started to cry. There wasn't much else he could do. His sobs seemed silent to him; the inferno drowned out most everything. He could feel the intensity of its heat on his tear-streaked face. Then he saw them.
Two soldiers, slinking through the farm equipment. They blended in to the ash-stained environment thanks to their carbon-gray uniforms better than if they had worn camouflage. Ardin froze, suddenly alert. His eyes began to clear. He stopped weeping. The soldiers started to move quickly. Guns raised, they covered the remaining ground to John before he ever knew they were there.
The soldier on the right lunged forward, putting his full weight behind the butt of his rifle, and delivered a savage blow that put John on the ground in an instant. Ardin grabbed his mouth to prevent the escape of an unwelcome scream. He was certain his brother was dead.
Ardin's eyes darted around to see if there was any clear path of escape. He slid down the slope as quickly and quietly as he could and scuttled behind a rusted plow. He didn't have it in him to get back up the hill, and he was certain they would sweep it soon anyways if they weren't already up there. He had to find somewhere they wouldn't look, somewhere they wouldn't dare to go. Somewhere they were scared to go. Like John had taught him.
He checked to see if the soldiers were looking, but they were preoccupied with his brother's body. Ardin stayed low to the ground as he scrambled from one form of cover to the next, finally reaching a wagon shelter. It was basically half a building designed to keep rain off equipment but do little more.
He was closer to the house now than he had been, off to the left of the two soldiers whose faces were obscured by dark glasses and handkerchiefs. They seemed to be talking to each other still. The heat of the fire was getting worse. He could barely breathe through all the ash swirling around his head. Pulling some rubble out of a drainage ditch next to the shelter, he stopped. The rocks were slick.
He pulled his hands back and found they were covered with blood. He could see where it had seeped out from between the boards that made up the side of the ramshackle shed.
Wiping the blood off on his grimy pants, he peered through the cracks and splintered holes to see what lay beyond. The weight in his stomach did its best to pull him back. There was a hand, it was about all he could make out, but loosely held in it was the hilt of a saber.
He spun around, planting his back firmly on the wood and started gasping for air as though he'd been kicked in the chest again. He knew that hand, that saber. His world fell apart as it burned around him.
He closed his eyes and wished it all would go away. If he could only wish hard enough everything would just go back to normal. When he opened his eyes again he was greeted with a harsh reality that he could do nothing to change what had happened.
He dared a glance around the corner once again to see whether the soldiers were looking. He had to make a run for it, he had to escape. The two men were still over by his brother, neither of them looking his way. But then one of them did something odd. He cocked his assault rifle.
Ardin's eyes snapped to attention. He stared for
a second as the men continued to talk. His brother was alive. He couldn't be certain but there was no reason for them to stand about and shoot dead bodies when the world was crumbling around them.
His heart started to race and felt like it would make a run for his throat. He swung lightly over the low wall of the shelter, ducking in the shade provided by the slanted roof above. His father's lifeless body lay broken beneath him, riddled with holes and slumped in the corner. Ardin paused a moment. The shed spun around him as his vision became crystal clear, adrenaline pumping into his veins. He knew what he had to do.
He grabbed the saber out of this father's hand, his stomach dropping briefly before he ignored it and took off running for the soldiers.
The one who had cocked his rifle now had his foot firmly planted between John's shoulder blades and was slowly taking aim at the back of his head. They were still saying something but Ardin didn't hear it. He covered the thirty yards to the murderous devils in seconds, screaming as he leaped to the attack.
The adrenaline was coursing through him now; he could feel it burning like a straight shot of his uncle's whiskey. Everything slowed to Ardin as the tip of his blade lightly scraped the ground and swept upwards. But time kept pace for his first victim who suddenly found a three inch thick blade lodging itself firmly in his neck.
The soldier, thrown off balance, fired frantically in a vain attempt to strike his assailant. But the boy was already rolling, on his feet, and coming back for more. He hacked down once on the face of the soldier, splitting his sunglasses and releasing a garbled scream of pain from behind a bloody handkerchief.
Without thinking Ardin spun low to avoid the gunfire he knew would be aimed his way. He didn't even hear the whip-crack of bullets whizzing past his ear or the thuds they made striking his victim. Down went his knee to plant and gain leverage, up came the blade as he twisted it into the ribcage of the second soldier who had already been struck twice by his partner's flailing attempts to shoot Ardin.