The Way of Death

by James Von Ohlen

  Reiji’s eyes snapped into focus and he found himself sitting upright among hot rocks and cold air, outside in the dark of the night. A boy, not a man, not a wolf, crouched near him, wide-eyed and staring at him. The pain in his thigh flared again and he looked down to see a handful of syringes sticking into his leg. The source of his pain.

  He reached down and grabbed them and began yanking them out, one by one, and struggled to remain conscious as he did so.

  “I used your medicine on you,” the boy said, in a matter of fact manner. As Reiji pulled the last syringe out, he felt the surface coding on it. Chemical attack. His mind rewound the past few seconds and played them back to him. Biological attack. Radiation Sickness. Traumatic wounds. Someone had injected him with every single pre-filled syringe in his med kit.

  That would cost a small fortune to replace, but it was far better than the alternative. Buying a new med kit was a small price to pay for his life.

  His med kit had been in his pack. His pack that he’d left somewhere up above him after…after that motherfucker had poisoned him, stabbed him, thrown him down the slope and left him to die. Pain flared in Reiji’s head, behind his eyes, and he doubled over and vomited. A potential side effect of some of the nanobot treatments. He’d never used so many at once before.

  In fact, he’d never used more than one at a time, and even then only once in a two year period. He had no idea what this was going to do to him. He was conscious now and seemed to be surviving, but he might be dead in an hour. Then again, if he hadn’t been injected with the syringes, he would already be dead.

  He pushed himself upright once more and the world snapped into sharp focus again, leaving behind the impressionist view of everything he had been experiencing. There was enough starlight and moonlight to see clearly now. Reiji looked to the boy to have his suspicions confirmed. His savior, the man he owed his very life to, was none other than the dead farmer’s simpleton son.

  Reiji shook his head once in disbelief. They’d marched through hard desert for a significant distance since they’d left the farmhouse in flames. How the hell had this kid not only survived, but managed to follow them here? Reiji remembered the man killed by an assassin’s arrow and the image of the same streaking by Gavin’s head as his blade sank into Reiji’s chest formed in his mind.

  The boy had liked to go bow hunting with his father. Before Gavin had murdered him, and before Pedro had raped the boy’s mother and sisters and likely his brother as well. He finally put two and two together.

  Not only had the boy survived the desert, and followed him here, but he’d begun hunting them as well. And instead of killing Reiji when he had the chance, the boy had saved him.

  “Why?” The word croaked out of Reiji’s throat. The boy looked at him from the shadows for a moment before answering.

  “Because you was nice to me, mister. And you didn’t hurt my family. Like they did.” The word came out of the boy’s mouth as ‘fambly’ but Reiji understood him all the same.

  Reiji’s hand fell to Kai’s hilt out of habit and he found only empty air where the blade should have rested. He looked down to see that he held neither of his weapons. Maybe they’d been lost when he fell. He turned side to side, looking for the telltale glint of the blades in moonlight. Seeing nothing.

  “What’cha lookin’ for mister?” The boy’s voice cracked as it reached Reiji’s ears, sounding like he was screaming from miles away.

  “My blades,” came his reply.

  “Oh,” the boy began. “Those. Uh…the bad one took them. After he killed you.”

  Reiji’s head snapped towards the boy. His mind reeled. He had taken the blades for granted all of his life for the tools that they were. The absolute highest quality and priceless. Now that the prospect of their having been lost to him stared him in the face, he gained a rapid appreciation of them for what others might have seen them as. Family heirlooms.

  It’s not like he would actually have to answer to his ancestors over their loss, but their reactions in the training hall would be real enough. Some might even refuse to train him after such an insult to the family’s honor.

  The training hall, the words passed through his mind and he absent mindedly reached into his jacket. His fingers closed on the data crystal that housed the digitized personalities of his forefathers and the program that allowed him to interact with them. At least that hadn’t been stolen. Though it might have been badly damaged. Time would tell.

  With more immediate concerns, he turned his attention back to the boy and his tale of stolen blades.

  When he’d thought Little Brother had been lost, he’d been prepared to kill every last man on Lexington to find the wakazashi. With both stolen, he would be willing to burn down the very planet itself to retrieve them. But there were other more immediate obstacles to deal with. Namely, survival.

  “Did he take anything else? The bad one?” Reiji asked the boy, his own voice cracking. The boy bit his lower lip in thought before answering.

  “No. That was it. He took your neat-o swords. I would have shot him when he was doing it, but I had to go get my arrow before I could shoot at him again. And it took a long time to find. I wanted to shoot him real bad.” He swallowed hard and the boy’s face contorted with anger that suddenly made him look like a man, Reiji’s age at least, before it relaxed again into his default blissfully ignorant state.

  “And I got your pack for you!” The boy almost shouted, but his voice failed as he held Reiji’s pack up in his left hand. Dehydrated would be Reiji’s guess as to why the boy’s voice was failing him.

  “Where is he now?” Reiji asked, realizing too late that he might still be in danger.

  “Oh, uh, I think him and some other guys left. At least it looked like him. But this time he was big and made of metal. But the other guys still followed him.” The boy said.

  “And where did they go?”

  “Back into the desert.”

  “And why didn’t you follow them?” Reiji’s own voice sounded weak and forced. The boy wasn’t the only one suffering dehydration.

  “I stopped to see if you’re okay.” The boy spoke as if the answer was obvious.

  Somewhere, something growled in the night.

  Wounded, disoriented, and unarmed was no way to face one of the monstrous predators that called these wastelands home. Gavin’s crew had been lucky to avoid them, but then again the predators were smart and would have avoided a large group of armed men. Now, with just Reiji and the boy, they wouldn’t hesitate to fill their belly.

  Reiji tried to rise to his feet and wobbled badly as he did so. The boy stepped forward and helped stabilize him.

  “There,” Reiji pointed to the warehouse. “We need to go there.” A cold wind washed over him as he leaned hard against the boy. With the amount of nanobots in his body, he should be feeling invincible right now. Instead he felt like dying ass.

  But it had been one hell of a stroke of luck that he had injected himself before Gavin’s blade had ripped him open. Had that not happened, he would be a corpse full of nanobots. Coupled with his bounty, that might make him the most valuable dead body on the face of Lexington. And the boy would be alone in the dark of the night to potentially face whatever the fuck it was out there growling.

  Reiji found that last thought odd, and chalked it up to being delirious with his condition. Why would he give a shit if the retard was by himself in the desert? Maybe because he just saved your life, and you realize that you owe him. Big time. An annoying voice spoke in the back of his mind. Maybe, he conceded to his own thoughts. And maybe you can go fuck yourself, he answered.

  Something else out there, in the dark, cold night, shrieked. An animal sound of terror and desperation. The growling of some beast drowned it out and Reiji pictured some hapless desert animal being ripped to shreds and devoured by one of those fucking things that lived out there.

  Goons, they were called. Armored crocodiles was what they resembled. Only about five times the size o
f the biggest Reiji had seen in textbooks and nature programs as a kid. They could swallow a man whole and shit out what was left of his skeleton a few hours later. And they loved places like this.

  Animals that dangerous had been hunted down and killed wherever they were found by the first colonists on Lexington. But they invariably missed a few, and in the past couple of decades, as more pressing concerns occupied people’s minds, the numbers of the native beasts began to increase again.

  Better to not still be here if it comes and pokes around, Reiji thought as the pair stepped and dragged their way closer and closer to the door to the warehouse. He looked down and noted the pattern of footprints leading away from the installation.

  Four men on foot. Two of them big and heavy fuckers. Likely the twins. And something that looked like it was a walking tank. Reiji remembered the combat exoskeletons he’d seen with Gavin moments after they’d taken the installation. The boy said that the man had been made of metal when he left. It would make sense for him to be in one of them. But why only one, and where were the rest of the crew?

  Reiji strained to hear any sounds emerging from the warehouse, finding nothing. An almost impossible feat for that group. Shutting the fuck up, he thought. There was no way he’d not hear at least a few of them if they were still there.

  The moved to within arm’s reach of the door and Reiji saw that it was ajar. The men who had left hadn’t bothered to close it. He reached for the door, wondering who might be on the other side. Only one way to find out, he thought as he stepped through.

  The interior was dimly lit, just like the first time Reiji had crept through the door and into the sheet metal and chain-link hallway. A smell that was all too familiar began to make its way to his nose. Dead things, doing what dead things do. Rotting.

  The twenty or so men that Gavin’s crew had killed when they took the installation had been dragged to a back room and dumped there. The men hadn’t been planning on staying in the warehouse for more than a day or so, and most had no interest in going back outside unless it was absolutely necessary. Shitty weather and a potential hostile sniper could do that.

  But those same men had been dead for some time now. Exactly how long, Reiji couldn’t say. He had no idea how long he’d been out. He suspected it had only been a few hours, but it could just as easily have been a full day or two.

  As he walked down the hallway he was careful to make as little noise as possible when he stepped. The boy tried to follow him in, but Reiji pushed him back and made it clear that he should wait just inside of the door. The last thing he needed was some retard running around making noise when he was unarmed, injured, and potentially heavily outnumbered by a hostile force. Reiji slowly closed the door until it locked with a dull click.

  The sound seemed to echo throughout the whole warehouse. He’d just told the boy to be silent, and here he was, making too much noise.

  He looked at the boy in the dim light. Able to make out details about him that he couldn’t see outside it the dark of the night. His skin was a deep red whereas it had been pale white when they’d first met. Blisters rose in many spots, showing the severity of the damage the sun had done to him while he followed Gavin and his crew.

  The boy had nothing with him beyond his clothing, filthy and stained with sweat, and a bow strapped across his back. A single arrow rode next to it. How the fuck did this kid survive out there with nothing but this? Reiji pondered it as he looked at the boy, but he already knew.

  The boy had set off into the desert to hunt Gavin and his crew. In search of vengeance. Hatred could make a man strong. Make him tough. Even if he was just a retarded kid when it came down to it. But by the looks of the boy, even hatred had its limits. Another day or so in the desert with no supplies and he’d be as good as dead. Reiji turned back to the hallway.

  Sticking to the wall, he crept unevenly, wobbling as he moved. Did it really matter if the kid made noise? In this shape he could barely walk in a straight line. Any fight now would likely be his last.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Reiji made it to the end of the hallway, where it turned towards the communal dining room. Light shone there, but he heard nothing. Carefully, he looked around the corner. Quickly and silently. Not pausing to try to process what he saw, just taking a mental picture and then pouring over it in his head once he was back in the cover of the hallway.

  What had he seen? Ten or so dead men. Lying about the room in various states, most contorted with agony and discolored. One cut to pieces. All the source of the stench he was facing. Something about their faces and the tone of their skin said ‘poisoned’ to him. Reiji paused and counted the number of men he’d seen. Seven total. If he added in the two men already dead, himself, and the footprints leading away into the desert, that was every man accounted for.

  So Gavin hadn’t just tried to get rid of me, Reiji thought. He killed almost everyone. Would he have done such a thing in order to avoid paying up? He seemed like a man of means, with no small amount of money at his command. He’d promised a great deal, but should have been able to cover it without problem. Why then had he turned on most of his crew and killed them?

  Does it really fucking matter? The same voice in Reiji’s head that had spoken to him when he lay in the desert began again. That cunt poisoned you and then ran you through. And then threw you off a cliff. And stole your blades. Anything else he’s done in his entire life, and the reason for it, is meaningless. This fucker dies, that’s all there is to it.

  Hard to argue with that, Reiji thought to himself. Still on the verge of death and already planning to hunt the man down and make shoes out of him. Would he feel the same when he fully recovered from his wounds? If he recovered he corrected himself. There was still a possibility he would die here. Aside from that, he doubted his mind would change. Some things were just inexcusable.

  Reiji called for the boy to join him. Together they entered the dining hall, stepping over puddles of things loosed from men’s bowels and throats in their death throes. Most of the men had been looted from the look of it. They weren’t the type to ever be long without blades at hand, and only a few of them remained armed.

  “Find me a sword that isn’t a useless piece of shit,” Reiji said to the boy who quickly moved to comply. Somehow, Reiji didn’t think the boy would be able to tell the difference.

  After a few steps the boy paused. Reiji could hear the growl from his stomach, hunger registering heavy as the nearby food beckoned to them. The boy raised his hand to reach for a nearby morsel. Some type of meat in gravy.

  Reiji’s hand clamped down on his wrist hard enough to make the boy wince and attempt to jump back. Even weakened, his grip was iron, and the boy went nowhere.

  “Poisoned,” he growled. “Don’t touch it.” There was a force in his words that made the boy simply nod his head, wide-eyed. Reiji released his wrist and the boy clutched it with his other hand, rubbing at it before returning to his search. Reiji sat and watched the boy move cautiously from corpse to corpse. Staring at them as if they might not actually be dead.

  A minute or so later the boy returned, holding a sword in each hand. “These look cool,” he proclaimed proudly as he held them aloft, looking rapidly back and forth between the weapons. Reiji looked at both blades, dismissing the first as a possibility almost instantly. Poorly cared for, oddly shaped, and made of some inferior type of metal that was beginning to show spots of corrosion.

  The second was better. And since there was no other choice it would have to do. A simple broadsword, but made of quality steel and well-maintained. He took the sword from the boy’s hand as he rose and felt the weight of it. It was a pale imitation of Kai. Like going back to fucking street-walkers after having a rich girl from the walled fortresses the upper classes lived in, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  Reiji leaned heavily on the blade, using it as a cane as he began moving. There was bound to be a medical supply closet somewhere around here. He might be able to begin patching hims
elf up. As he walked an unmistakable sound reached his ears, striking almost in time with his footsteps.

  The sound of a blade entering flesh.

  He turned and raised the borrowed sword to defend himself, noting how weak his arms felt and how the tip of the weapon wobbled beyond his control. But there was no immediate threat. The sound was caused by the boy cutting maniacally at the corpses of the dead men, swinging wildly with the blade Reiji had turned down. Some small measure of vengeance for what they had done. For what Reiji had allowed them to do.

  Given the chance to do it all over again, he’d put his blade squarely between Gavin’s eyes. And then run for his life. Even if the outcome was death for the farmer and his, fuck fighting that many men and at least two machines at the same time.

  As Reiji watched, the boy hacked the limbs from a dead man and stabbed his chest a dozen times or so. He screamed without words, venting the sound of rage, fury, and despair simultaneously. For a moment Reiji wondered if he had enough left in himself to fight the boy if the boy were to turn on him. It wouldn’t make sense for the boy to save him and then turn around and kill him in a fit of rage, but the boy’s mind was a damaged thing. In more ways than one at the moment.

  The boy threw the sword away from himself where it clanged against the sheet metal wall and fell to the ground as he started weeping uncontrollably. Reiji lowered his wobbly blade and looked around the room for a few seconds. For possibly the first time in his life he wasn’t sure what to do.

  The boy kicked a corpse a few times before stopping and simply staring at it. He turned his gaze towards Reiji, lifeless and dull eyes stood still in his expressionless face. Something showed there, behind the eyes of a dead man. For only the briefest moment. A glimmer of intelligence, perhaps. And then it was gone.

  “I’m hungry,” the boy’s voice rang out loud and clear as he suddenly smiled, almost causing Reiji to flinch.