I stumbled and fell on my knees for the first time. Getting up was difficult, and I groaned with pain. I hadn’t seen any good spot to camp since I left the ravine where I skinned the uiun-bairs, and my brain was starting to tell me it didn’t matter where I slept, as long as I did it right now.
“Fucking move, Adam,” I growled to myself as I continued my walk.
My head was spinning, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I stumbled again, and getting up to my feet felt like the hardest movement I had ever made. I needed to sleep more than anything else.
Then I heard a cry.
My eyes snapped open, and I peered into the branches of the trees above me.
The cry sounded again, and I realized the noise was coming from a black bird sitting in the branches of a large tree. The bird was large, and it had a curved beak like that of a raptor. It looked a bit like a black eagle, but its feathers ended at its head, and there were armored scales on its head instead.
The bird turned to look at me with intelligent eyes, and then it cried out one final time before it took to the air. I didn’t see where it flew. Instead, my eyes stayed focused on where it was perched. Three branches were running in parallel there, and they formed a bit of a platform. The ledge was some ten meters above the forest floor, and other low hanging branches created a bit of a ladder I could climb to reach it.
I didn’t question my luck for too long. I almost didn’t have the strength to climb up the branches with the pelts on my shoulders, but the effort was worth it. I rolled out one of the pelts on the shelf, lay on top of it, and then covered myself with the second one. Everything smelled like blood, and death, and violence, but the scents were strangely comforting.
Then I slept.
Chapter 7
My journey was significantly easier after the first night.
When I finally awoke, I made my way down the tree and continued toward the first checkpoint. I found a stream to wash off the pelts, and I was able to use the paracord to craft better foot coverings with the skins. I also fashioned bulky winter clothes from one pelt and kept the second as a blanket. That process took most of my second day, but then I traveled much faster.
The cold days passed. The colder nights came.
I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was lonely, but soon those sensations and desires took a backseat to the goal of moving toward the checkpoint. When I slept, I dreamed of Zea, Eve, Kasta, and Paula. But around the third night, I started thinking about Madalena, and I couldn’t seem to get the brown-haired warrior woman out of my head. It was frustrating, but only because the anger I felt for her had cooled, and I wished I had seen her before I left for this planet.
I could have sent her to Queen’s Hat to talk to Juliette. I could have sent her after my friends. I could have spoken with her and learned more about her life. Instead, I’d focused too much on trying to get out of this rite instead of doing something useful.
The beast in my soul growled as if to tell me I was being too hard on myself.
The conversations twisted and spun in my head after days of lonely walking and surviving. I’d grown bored with talking with myself, and all I possessed were my memories of the things I’d fucked up. Maybe it was the way of warriors though. We tended to agonize over the mistakes we had or often hadn’t made. On top of the kidnapping of my crew, I had dozens of fallen brothers during my work in the Marines. I’d always beaten myself up over the what ifs. What if I’d shot the enemy a split second faster, what if I’d been to the location two seconds sooner? What if I’d zigged instead of zagged? In hindsight, every death of a comrade was my fault.
I should have been better, but that was part of being a Marine. I was still alive, and I’d work my ass off to get better.
Then I’d save my friends and kill the assholes who took them.
It could have been day five, or maybe it was six when I crested a snow-covered hilltop and saw a settlement in a valley down below. It was only twelve or so buildings, but I saw a trio of vehicles parked in front of the largest of them. It was mid-morning, and the rising sun kissed the rooftops of the structures with an orange glow.
One of the vehicles was a truck, and the two others were smaller sloped vans. They had big snow tires on the rear, and the fronts had a single large tire lifted over the hood. Where the tire should have gone were a pair of ski-like sled skiffs. I saw that the wheel could be lowered to use instead of the skis, but the ground was still deep with snow, so they were running it the other way.
The buildings looked surprisingly stout, almost like mini-fortresses, and some even had two-meter high brick walls around them. I supposed it made sense since the uiun-bairs and armadillo-wolves were roaming throughout the wilds.
I had crafted a new wooden spear that served a double purpose as a walking stick, and I leaned on it for a few seconds while I plotted my path down the steep side of the hill. I wasn’t sure if these people would be friendly, or if they would help me, but I knew I needed to get one of those vehicles. Maybe someone would trade a pelt for a ride, or maybe they would take me south out of the goodness of their heart.
Or maybe I’d have to take one.
I didn’t like the idea of stealing, but I was a desperate man, and every day that passed meant another day my friends spent in captivity. I’d do my best to barter with people or exchange work for a ride, but I was done being nice to people.
I’d been nice to Madalena and look where that got me.
I growled to myself as soon as the thought entered my mind. It wasn’t fair for me to blame her. She’d been grateful I’d saved her, then had given herself to me because she felt honor bound to pay me back. Her crewmate fucked up her plan to help me, and she tried to do the best she could to prepare me for this.
And I’d turned her away.
“Fuck,” I sighed and then wiped the uiun-bair mitten over my face. I was thinking about the Prime Valkyrie again. It was getting harder to not think of her. I remembered every detail of her face, her eyes, her hair, and the shape of her body under her suit. She had mentioned something about me thirsting for her. The sensation wasn’t quite that powerful, but I did find myself thinking about her every time I thought about Eve and Zea.
I occupied myself with trekking down the hill. Once I’d made it to the main street of the village, I moved to the door of the main building and listened. I heard voices inside, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I did see a picture of what looked like a beer mug on the side of the door, so I guessed this was a tavern.
I took a deep breath and entered the place.
The voices stopped conversing as soon as I stepped inside, and I scanned the dimly lit room to get my bearings. The place was a tavern, with a long bar at the far side of the room, a dozen wooden tables in the middle, and three large booths on either side of the wall. There was the stuffed head of some horned creature above the bar, along with a pair of Viking style shields and axes. There was also a television on the right wall, but no sound came out of it.
Ten men and three women were inside the tavern. Two of the men were stationed behind the bar. Three were sitting at the bar, and five were gathered around one of the tables. The three women sat at a separate table to the side of the men, and they gave me terrified looks. All the men and women were clothed in wool sweaters, thick pants, and wore mittens tied around their necks. The men were all drinking beer and eating breakfast, but the women weren’t eating or drinking.
The inhabitants of the tavern stared at me in silence, and then a beep sounded from the ceiling above me. The room looked up to the observer, and then down to me.
“I need a ride south. I’ve got a little over five thousand kilometers to go before--” I knew enough about body language to know that something in the men’s faces was off, so I dropped the pelt from my shoulder and drew my spear arm back as one of the men at the table reached toward his belt.
He got a revolver halfway out of its holster before my spear hit him in the chest. The man had his finger o
n the trigger of his gun, and it went off at the same time as my throw punched through his ribcage. As he tumbled back, the rest of the men in the tavern went fishing for their handguns.
I reached to my right and grabbed the legs of one of the tables as the tiger in my soul roared a warning. The table was made of a heavy hardwood, but I was able to toss it through the air with a twist of my hips and a grunt. The table flew three meters and smacked into the two closest sitting men.
One of the assholes behind the bar pulled out a double-barrel, and I dove to my ten o’clock position a half-moment before his blast went off. He missed me somehow, but I heard the women scream with terror. Their cry was interrupted by another two shots that sounded as if they came from revolvers, but these also missed me as I rolled, and I managed to come up next to the table where the closest group of men sat.
The table I had thrown caused the remaining two men to fall backward out of their chairs. Neither one of them had pulled their guns out of their holsters yet, so I decided to worry about the fuckers at the bar for now. I grabbed the edge of the table, flipped it over for some cover, and then leaned out the side to assess the situation at the bar.
It was just a quick glance, but the men were pointing their firearms toward the table, and I had to throw myself backward as they shot. Their bullets tore into the table, but all of them missed me.
One of the pair on my side had gotten his revolver out, and I rolled away as he fired. His hands shook as he aimed at me, so I guessed he would miss, and I was proven correct when his bullet went wide.
More bullets tore through the air and punched through the table, but none of them came close to hitting me. That wasn’t going to last forever though, all these fuckers had to do was take a few dozen steps to either side to flank me, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
For the moment.
I finished my side roll and then pounced forward to the man who just missed me. He tried to twist his revolver up so he could aim at me, but I grabbed his arm and bent it so that his weapon pointed at the other man who had dived to avoid my table.
I pushed my finger through the trigger guard and then squeezed the man’s hand. The revolver went off and the second man’s head burst open like a rotten watermelon.
The man who I grappled with was strong, but he wasn’t nearly as strong as me, and he didn’t really know how to wrestle. He tried to pull his revolver away from me, but I just smacked my left forearm into the inside of his elbow while I pushed on the handgun. Despite his efforts, his arm collapsed into a bicep curl, and I was able to twist the gun so the barrel pushed into his jaw.
Then I pulled the trigger causing the top part of his head to erupt like a volcano.
I yanked the gun from the dead man’s fingers a half-second before one of the three men at the bar got the idea to move around the side of the room. He was making a run toward one of the tables, but he was only five meters away, and the revolver I held obeyed my aim. The bullet took him in the chest, and he spun around like a top before he tumbled to the ground.
Silence fell across the room, and I crawled back so I was closer to the wooden table between the bar and the two men I’d just killed. I didn’t think the other two men I’d hit with the table were dead, but I saw that they weren’t moving, so I didn’t think I would have to worry about them for a few minutes. I only had to worry about the two fuckers behind the bar, the two men in front of the bar, and the women.
I glanced over to the women and saw that they had all moved to the far side of the room. Then I saw something shiny on their legs, and I narrowed my eyes.
The women were all shackled together.
I heard the action of the double barrel shotgun snap closed, and I popped up from behind the table with my new revolver ready. The fucker with the shotgun was lifting it up to aim at me, but I put my penultimate bullet in between his eyes before he could line the weapon up.
I popped back down below the table, and the other men shot through the table again. One of the bullets hit me in my right shoulder, and I felt it shatter a bone there. Fortunately, it punched out the other side, and I wasn’t going to have to worry about digging it out later.
I switched the revolver to my left hand and then leaned out the same side of the table. One of the men was jumping over the bar, and my last shot hit him right in the tailbone. He screamed as his spine shattered, and I saw the lower half of his body go limp as he fell.
I was out of bullets now, but the last two fuckers might not know that. All they knew was that I had fired five shots and now six of their friends were dead. I imagined I’d have a bit of time, so I ignored the agony in my shoulder, belly crawled over to the man I’d taken the gun from, set my revolver down, and reached into his pockets. His pants had a wallet, and metal devices I guessed were keys to one of the vehicles. His coat pocket had what felt like ten loose bullets, and I yanked them out with my fingers as deftly as I could.
My sensitive ears heard the men whispering to each other from the other side of the bar, but I couldn’t understand their language. I grabbed the revolver in my right hand and clenched my teeth against the pain of my shattered shoulder bone while I opened up the cylinder. I pushed on the cylinder’s ejector rod to push out the bullets, but I let them fall on my chest instead of on the ground. Then I pushed six bullets in as quietly as I could. The men were still planning how to take me out, but they stopped talking when I pushed the cylinder back into the revolver.
I moved the gun back to my left hand, scooped up the spent brass with my right, and then shifted to a crouching position. I heard muffled movement from the bar, and I knew that they were moving to opposite sides so they could both flank me.
I slowly let the brass fall out of my right hand while aiming my revolver out the left side of my table. The asshole took my bait and sprinted from behind the bar so he could catch me while I was reloading. My shot hit him in the neck, and he tumbled to the floor with a gagging sound. I heard the other fucker start to run, and I pushed down on my heels so that I sprung up from behind the table. He had grabbed the other man’s double barreled shotgun, but my bullet hit him in the center of the chest, and he fell over backward as he pulled both of the triggers. The shotgun went off, but it only sprayed buckshot into the ceiling.
I spun around and aimed my gun at each of the bodies. The fucker I’d just shot was gagging still, but I didn’t want to waste a bullet on him. The two men I’d hit with the table were breathing, and I did decide to waste a bullet on each of their skulls. I moved to the rest of the men, confirmed they were all dead, and then turned to the women.
But I froze when I saw the television screen.
A video of me inside of the space fortress’ elevator was playing.
“Hey, do any of you speak English?” I asked the four women. They looked at each other, and one of them nodded.
“You do?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered with a head nod.
“Why am I on this screen?” I pointed up with the gun and realized my injured shoulder was starting to itch.
“You are Adam,” she replied. She had ice blue eyes and dark red hair. One of the other women looked very similar to her, and I guessed they were sisters. The third woman was blonde, and she had dark eyes. All three of them had dirty faces, but they were attractive.
“Yes, I am Adam. What the fuck does that have to do with me being on the screen?”
“They say you murdered King Vaish’s warriors and escaped here. Every news station is playing your picture. There is a…” she grasped for the word and then her eyes opened when she seemed to have remembered it, “reward. There is a big reward for anyone who kills you.”
“Fucking shit. Of course there is.” My heart hammered in my chest, and my stomach went numb. How many people were on this planet? Would they all be looking for me? Would they know the location of where my pod landed?
The women’s eyes opened wide when I cursed, and I forced my lips to smile.
“Look,
I didn’t murder anyone. You three are safe from me.”
“You murder them,” the woman said as she pointed at the dead men.
“That was self-defense,” I said.
“You had spear. They were ten with pistols. They are dead.” The woman smirked a bit and then shrugged.
I looked around the room at the dead bodies and then gestured to the women’s legs. “Why are you chained? Are you slaves?” Madalena had told me her people didn’t have slavery, but here were three pretty women shackled together.
“No slaves,” she said as she shook her head.
“Then why the shackles?” I asked, and my mind drifted to thoughts of my enslaved friends. Were they shackled like this inside of the Magate Order ship?
Had they already been sold?
“We are thralls,” the redhead said.
“So slaves.” I sighed.
“No. Thralls. We are no slaves.”
“Whatever. Which one of these fuckers had the keys?” I asked as I gestured to the bodies.
“Him,” the redhead said as she gestured to the first man I shot.
I went over to the corpse and searched his pockets. This man had three speed loaders, a wallet, condoms, and a keyring. I tossed the keys to the redhead, and she caught them easily.
“Unlock your shackles. You are free.”
“Not free,” she said as she shook her head. “Thralls.”
“Okay, well. I have to get to my checkpoint and complete the rite of passage. So you can do whatever the fuck you want to do.” I pulled the man’s gun out of his dead hand and inspected it for quality. It was a bit larger of a caliber than the one I had used to kill all these men, and I set it down on a table along with his gun belt.
The three women unlocked themselves and then watched me search the corpses. I stopped after I took the wallet, bullets, and gun off the third body, and glanced over at them.
“You are free. You can leave if you want.”
“We are thralls. Nowhere to go,” the redhead answered.
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