Killers, Traitors, & Runaways: Outcasts of the Worlds, Book II

by Lucas Paynter

  “Oi, Flynn,” she said. “First we met, spoke—you were vague. Tell us now, where are you from?”

  Her question seemed to amuse him. “We travel together across Tryna, sail the oceans, and perform a mutiny … and now you ask?”

  “Tried to figure myself, but things with you don’t add. Jean ‘n you broke from ‘Earth,’ right? Thing is, you look like mine. She don’t.”

  Flynn smiled in reply. “If I asked you to picture me differently, Shea, could you? With eyes and ears like Jean’s, without all the little things you and I have in common that our companions don’t?”

  Shea shook her head. She tried to imagine it, but the Flynn before her was the only one she’d ever known.

  “I wasn’t always like you,” he went on. “And when I changed, I never thought I’d pass for normal again.”

  “Seem normal here,” she replied.

  “Which scares me. I could become dangerously comfortable here.”

  “Even with all the war?” she scoffed.

  “War is opportunity. It brings suffering and that makes people desperate, or vulnerable to their own good intentions. Even the best people do terrible things in the name of war, and those that don’t have terrible things done to them.”

  Evening came as a distant light appeared just ahead. An unfamiliar breed of tree grew in these woods: hollow trunks encompassed by a latticework of smooth bark. The light came from paper lanterns, housed in these strange trees, which encircled a clearing whose reddish sands were tinged with gray. They flickered faintly, and had clearly been burning for some time.

  “What are these?” Zella asked as she walked up to one. Soot had been piled in each of the trees, spilling through the gaps in the bark, and providing a mound for the lanterns to rest on. She took some in hand, pinching it through her fingers.

  “Pyre trees,” Shea explained. “Cavo soldiers died here. Ashes spread, lamps set in memory. For all the soot, likely recent.”

  “So did these guys win or lose?” Jean asked.

  “Wouldn’t know. Living graves, these. Not about glory or shame.”

  Shea walked up to inspect one of the lanterns, which had a soldier’s name written on it. The characters were unfamiliar, though; Shea couldn’t read Cavonish, so she said nothing.

  “A clearing as this would serve ideal camping grounds,” Chari suggested. “Do these ‘Cavos’ inspect these grave sites frequently?”

  The lantern’s flame flickered weakly.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Then we shouldn’t stay,” Poe said. “Not unless we wish to combat their surviving families.” He continued down the trail without another word. One by one they followed, the ashes of dead soldiers in their wake. Shea reached up her sleeve, found her private’s stripes, and tore them off as she would a bandage, letting them fall behind her.

  *

  The journey into the heart of Cavonia stretched on for weeks, for its forested wilderness was vast and shadowed. Local superstition kept civilization at bay, and if not for the sound of distant gunfire, Jean would have thought the land uninhabited. These days of walking in peace and living off the land were not to last.

  At first, it was just a road, dusky and forgotten. The next one was better used, with a single patrol surveying it nervously. The more the wilderness faded, the more the roads were maintained and frequented by soldiers. The group made quick dashes when the coast was clear and endured extended waits in the foliage while yet another unit marched diligently by. Whatever wars the Cavonish now fought, they’d kept them from spilling into their own territories.

  Once, as they ducked in hiding, Jean’s impatience threatened to boil. “Oughta just charge in, smash ’em, break through,” she muttered.

  “Daft,” Shea muttered. “Have half the Cavos on our tails.”

  Jean knew, and did nothing. But she loathed cowering from threats, and these soldiers would only meet them as enemies. Her palm hovered near the soil, and she was tempted to rattle their ranks and give them something else to worry about.

  Shea saw this and shook her head. Jean clenched her fist in frustration.

  If these difficulties were limited to the roads, it would have been enough. But as civilization expanded around them, safe places became fewer and fewer. Towns and any other signs of life had to be skirted, and the soldiers began patrolling more than just the roads to keep their populace safe. They were searching for spies, and forced the group to scatter and hide more than once, setting them back hours or sometimes even days.

  By the time they reached the northern borders, the cannon fire in the distance came to Jean as a relief, like a welcoming ceremony into new and more hospitable lands. It was naïve thinking, but Jean wanted to stop hiding and stand her ground.

  After a lengthy trek down a steep canyon, she got her chance.

  The group came to the edge of a battlefield where two sides were ruthlessly exchanging gunfire. The conflict zone was a maze of towering stone formations, whose dusky edifices were being chipped away by the shots. Both sides were using the formations for cover.

  “Cavos,” Jean observed, recognizing their uniforms. The other side was unknown to her.

  “Marvelous,” Chari grimaced. “How are we to get through?”

  “Do we have to try?” Zella asked. “We don’t have to engage them—we could double back, find another way.”

  “We? Rather generous, to count yourself among us.”

  Jean ignored the bitter exchange in favor of the battlefield. With its breadth and the storied columns, it was difficult to see how many were fighting out there. The Cavonish appeared to have suffered greater casualties, but even that information could have been altered by a better vantage point.

  “The terrain is too steep to fall back,” Flynn pointed out. “And the walls around us are too sheer.”

  “Got cover here,” Shea suggested, indicating the row of boulders that hid them from the conflict. “Wait till they stop.”

  “How long could that be?” he asked.

  “Hours. Days. Depends. How many soldiers, how many pellets? Reinforcements, resuppliers.” After an uncertain pause, she added, “Didn’t say it’d be quick.”

  Chari gave the field another look. “We should at least be grateful they’ve not developed more sophisticated weaponry.”

  “Even with flintlocks, they’re still doing a number on one another,” Flynn replied.

  Poe leaned in for a look, and Jean studied what he saw: there was a pillar not far from their cover that shielded them from one side and seemed to be a blind spot from the other. A little further in a pair stood side by side, with a window of safety between them.

  “We might use that avenue to sneak in and assassinate the aggressors—” Poe started, indicating the Cavonish.

  “And be shot to death,” Zaja finished. “No thanks. Not looking to die early.”

  “Think I got a way.” Jean beckoned the others for a closer look. “See that formation there? And those two, down that way?”

  “Blind spots,” Flynn caught on.

  “A sound tactic, save that we’d be shredded moving from one to the other,” Chari said. “We would be open targets to both sides and they would know us neither for friend nor foe.”

  Jean grinned with devious pride. “That’s why I’m gonna give ’em a bit of a tremble.”

  Zaja’s eyes widened with concern. “Won’t that knock the formations down?”

  Jean turned and looked back at the battlefield. The formations were old, broad, and part of the ground itself. She knelt and pressed her hand to the stone, sending subtle waves through to feel the weaknesses in the terrain. The formations seemed as firm as they looked, though to be certain she would have had to touch them directly. This would have to do.

  “They’ll hold. Just gonna give a jolt, startle the fuckers long enough to dash through.”

  “And no one dies needlessly?” Zella asked, before Jean flashed a scowl that provoked a reflexive, “Sorry.”

  As the
others weighed the pros and cons of this action, Jean remembered the train ride from Annora and what she’d told Leria. I ain’t a monster. This belief stayed with Jean when a consensus was reached, and she vaulted from cover and advanced in a crouch until she was as close as she could safely get.

  Jean knelt, pressed both palms to the earth and felt the vibrations form just below her elbow, before traveling down the bones of her forearms and exiting through her palms. It was a different show of force needed to rock the terrain rather than rupture it, and as a powerful earthquake took hold of the area, the formations danced and rubble rained down from them.

  The gunfire ceased.

  While her allies came out of hiding, Jean hurried ahead, but hadn’t even reached the first pillar when a shot rang out, followed swiftly by another as the battle started up again. When she glanced back, her friends were silently urging her to return, but Jean just rolled up her sleeves and pressed her hands down again.

  “Little longer,” she vowed in agitation, and everything shook again, the formations dancing more wildly than before. And again, the gunfire ceased. Once more, her allies hurried to join her; this time, Jean reached the first pillar. Confident that she’d succeeded in creating the opening they needed, she advanced for the second blind spot, the paired formations ahead.

  Another gunshot rang out.

  Jean scrambled for safety; half her company had joined her, but the others were forced to fall back. A hail of shots had erupted between them, keeping them apart.

  “They see me?” Jean asked as she tried to peek out, but there was no safe view. “Or are these fuckers stupid enough to ignore the ground beneath their goddamn feet?”

  She was uncertain what to do. One of those who’d joined her was Shea, and she clutched a pistol nervously with both hands.

  “No,” she concluded. “Ain’t gonna let my friends—or Poe—get killed savin’ my ass.” She closed her eyes and breathed deep, kneeling down once more.

  “Little harder, fuckers,” and the earth shook anew. Jean shuddered and tensed with each wave of force. She didn’t stop until she heard nothing, save the groan of the earth around her. Her anger subsided just as a nearby formation finished crashing down.

  The fighting had ceased.

  She stepped out from safety to discover that the distant formations had shattered at their bases and fallen like fresh timber. She had misjudged their stability. Badly. The only sound she heard now was the dust settling. That a body? she asked herself. Blood? It was hard to tell, for the dusky stone itself was as red as blood. Jean pressed forward—she had to see, had to know.

  Flynn grabbed her by the wrist and wrenched her away.

  “Fuck did I do?” she asked softly.

  Flynn spoke, but he sounded distant and broken. “Have to go…” he told her. “…no time…”

  “Didn’t mean to…” She felt like a little girl again, with all the terrors that came with it. “Was only tryin’ to scare…”

  She should have fought free, taken a look, but her strength had left her. She could only peer through the dust as Flynn led her away.

  *

  From there, things changed. They left Cavonia and saw new plant life, and the animals they hunted for food were not the same as before. The uniforms differed with every subsequent border, until they no longer knew who was fighting whom. But the sounds in the air—gunshots, cannon fire—those were consistent. They exercised great caution to cross unnoticed. They met only death.

  Jean remained rattled for some time after the incident at the formations. She tried to hide it, but the countless deaths—however unintentional—bothered her. And eventually, like before, they reached another conflict in a rifted valley, where two sides fought in open battle, and also barred their way.

  “There are ridges in the terrain,” Flynn observed. “We might be able to crawl through.”

  “I would take this avenue,” Poe said. “We have marched for weeks as it is. Every morning I wake, fearing Einré Maraius may take my delay for death and pass my destiny to another.”

  “Thought you were chosen, mate,” Shea replied. “Not chosen, not really destiny, is it?”

  “As I understand, my qualifications for godhood are exceptional, not unique.”

  “You won’t be replaced so easily,” Zella assured him. “Even so, we shouldn’t endanger ourselves if we don’t have to.”

  “A detour would only prolong our journey,” Poe argued. “Or is your intent some cowardly aid for the Reahv’li?”

  Zella scowled, but softened upon looking to Jean. Flynn said nothing, but he worried for her.

  “Jean?”

  “Huh?” Jean startled, as though waking from a stupor. “Just … let’s avoid shit, okay?”

  Though Flynn preferred expediency, he seconded her vote. The gunfire was playing havoc on Shea’s nerves, and neither Chari nor Zaja thought the risk worth it. Poe groused, but the numbers were against him, and he wasn’t willing to go it alone. A great hill walled the southern edge of the battlefield, its northern lip obscuring the conflict raging on the other side. As they hiked along it, in hopes of finding another way around, Poe did nothing to hide his discontent, and happened by Jean long enough to comment.

  “There are breeds of gutlessness I’ve come to expect—even accept—among my allies.” He shook his head in disappointment. “Not from you, Jean.”

  For a moment, she looked as if she were about to apologize. Then she hardened. “Fuck you, man.”

  At least she sounds like herself, Flynn thought. If only for a moment. It did not diminish the weight she seemed to be carrying, even as the slope of the hill itself plateaued. From here, they could see the remnants of a small town in the southern basin, recently leveled by cannon fire.

  “What’re they fighting for?” Zaja asked. “Food? Resources? Land? I’d understand if one side has something the other needs, but all I see is death. No one’s taking anything.”

  “Don’t know, here,” Shea replied while lighting a cigarette. “Just are.”

  The gunfire picked up in intensity.

  “We’ve yet to see or even hear of a land on this world free from war,” Zella said. “There are too many at play to believe they occurred naturally.”

  “If the circumstances are right, an entire world can fall to war,” Flynn replied. “I know Earth suffered several. Perhaps more than are remembered.”

  “Global wars have global causes, common enemies and allies,” Zella replied. “I once believed Keltian culture to simply be too hawkish, but we’ve heard tales suggesting the greatest bloodshed for the pettiest of reasons.” When she paused, gunfire could be heard pocking the other side of the hill. “Tell me, Flynn … how many centuries ago was it that Earth fell?”

  He was reluctant to admit, “I don’t know.”

  Zella glanced askew at Poe. “Perhaps with a reigning God of Eternity, you would.”

  Flynn wanted to ask what she meant, but the gunfire on the other side of the hill seemed to be climbing up. “Someone’s prey is retreating in our direction. We should—”

  The next shot rang the loudest.

  “ZAJA!” Flynn shouted.

  She had been struck in the back, and cried in pain as she tumbled off the road. Poe raced after her, leaping over Zaja in order to intercept her. As Chari quickly pursued, Flynn and Jean both readied for some unseen attacker. Shea was tightly gripping her still-sheathed cutlass as she clenched the cigarette between her lips.

  “The hell did that come from?” Jean demanded.

  As if in answer, several more shots punched the other side of the hill, and another arced over, the ball of lead burying itself at their feet.

  “Think we should fall back,” Shea suggested as another landed, then swiftly took her own advice. Zella followed, while Flynn had only made it a few feet down the hill when he realized Jean wasn’t following. He looked back up, saw her standing there—shoulders tense, her spiked mace stained with old blood.

  “Jean,” he calle
d softly.

  “They hurt my friend.” She was tense with anger.

  Flynn climbed back up and took her other hand. “You don’t want to fight, do you?”

  “I’ve gotta. Get lost, I’ll catch up.”

  Two more pellets struck near them.

  “You’re afraid,” Flynn intuited. “That you’ll lose control, like back in the canyon.”

  Jean nodded reluctantly. Another shot struck near her foot, and she didn’t even flinch. A bit closer, Flynn realized, and she could have died.

  “If I’d kept my cool then, we’d be across that field now. If I’d kept my cool back on Breth…”

  Flynn wanted to help her cope with all her insecurities and anxieties, but there was no time. The dueling armies gave no signs of coming closer, but their stray shots continued to rain like hail, and as he gave a sharp tug on Jean’s hand, this time, she yielded. Their friends were already further downhill, making for the battered town below, as clouds of dust kicked up with every shot that pelted their way. And for every one that connected, Flynn feared it might hit Jean and she would run no more.

  *

  Even as night fell, the conflict showed no signs of abating. The war fires burned so bright that the crest of the northern hill was singed red with a glow that would not fade until morning. In the wrecked town at the base of the hill—which Shea had identified as Convive from her map—they found one home that had largely survived bombardment, and made it their shelter through the night. Flynn watched from the window, surveying the debris of splintered wood and shattered glass, where signs of mangled bodies sometimes revealed themselves beneath.

  “Please remain still—I’ve yet to finish ministering to your wounds.”

  Chari was addressing Zaja, who sat on a stool facing the wall. She shivered from the cold, her blue backside bared as Chari finally began closing the injury after having removed the offending shot, which sat on a nearby plate, tinged with green blood.