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

by Lucas Paynter

  “Not like I’m gonna die,” Zaja groused, before reluctantly adding, “…from this.”

  Flynn watched as her wound mended into a faint scar. However cool her demeanor now, Zaja had cried out in pain when Chari had plied the bullet from her flesh. The healer moved on to tend the lesser bruises Zaja had suffered from her fall.

  “Your condition’s getting worse,” Flynn observed.

  Zaja tensed. “Why? Is there something on my back?”

  “Just one.” Chari dragged her finger across a narrow blemish crossing Zaja’s spine. “Here to here.”

  “Oh.” Her tone conveyed neither disappointment nor relief. “Not much I can do about it now.”

  Flynn wished he could offer more. “Just keep close to someone tonight. We can’t start a fire—someone might see.” He made his way upstairs, vaulting over several broken steps, to find a single lonely room. There were three occupants: one was Jean, leaning by a bullet-pierced window. The others were a deceased mother and child, the parent struck in the head, the baby dead in her arms.

  “We need to talk about what happened. Back in the canyon. Back on the hill.”

  “Think she died protectin’ her?” Jean asked of the dead mother. “Or was it just, ya know, stray shot? Pow, to the head?”

  “You lost control in the formations, and your nerve along with it,” Flynn replied, intent on staying on task. “What happened that has you so scared?”

  Jean clenched her fists; she wanted to exit, but took a deep breath and relaxed her hands slowly, pressing them against the wall. The house remained still. “I’ve got no self-control.”

  She ached in admitting it.

  “You have some—”

  “Bullshit,” she snapped. “I did, might not have lost Mack. Wouldn’t have run off to beat the crap outta Arronel.” She stroked the scar running through her forearm. “Wouldn’t have let the fucker spear me back on Terrias. Broke the damn bridge in that blizzard on Oma—”

  “You’ve made your point,” Flynn interrupted. He was trying to help her heal, not enable her to keep beating herself up.

  “Wouldn’t have gotten captured back on Earth, thrown in Civilis,” she concluded. “Wouldn’t have met, you an’ me.” She closed her eyes, thought back further. “Wouldn’t have lost my mom, either.”

  Flynn stood across from her, the moonlight piercing the darkness between them. He was certain he’d found the root of her problem. “What happened?”

  She looked at her open palms, her hands both perfectly still. “When I was small? Hands used to shake like a rattler’s tail. Couldn’t even keep a damn fork straight, so Mama had to feed me every night. Hardly was able to do a thing without her, since everythin’ my mitts touched buckled an’ broke.”

  For all her misfortunes of birth and circumstance, Flynn felt a flash of envy. He’d been born normal and at least had a stable home; she had grown up on the run, vilified as a ‘half-human’ on an Earth that despised her kind. But there was love. He didn’t share this envy, knowing it would only come off as insulting.

  “Ya know the kind of life half-humans get,” she went on. “My mama coulda had a real one. But she held tight to me, tried to find some place safe for us together. And there were places … they just never panned out. Had to keep me from people, and I think some found out, and she…” Jean cut that line of thought; whatever sins she believed her mother had committed, she couldn’t bring herself to slander the memory. “Then, one day, she leaves. Supply run, nothin’ major, s’posed to be back before bed. ’Cept she doesn’t show. Day goes by. Two. Three.”

  Abandonment, was Flynn’s first conclusion. Scarlet Carolina had left his father the same way. “She didn’t come back?”

  Jean shook her head. “Had to go lookin’. Mama said never to follow, keep away from folks. Followed anyway, started askin’ around. An’ ya know? Someone had seen her.” She shuddered at the recollection. “Dunno if they were tryin’ to make her spill where I was or if they just grabbed her for her…” Her tone turned to painful disgust. “The shit they did to her.”

  “I can’t imagine losing a parent like that,” he said sympathetically. It was a mournful portrait: some abandoned building with boarded up windows, Jean’s mother bound to a chair or hanging from a beam.

  Jean spoke with soft terror. “She wasn’t dead yet.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. “Ran in and cut her free and was so glad that I hugged her. I hugged her,” she repeated in a stunned whisper. “Why did I hug her? I knew better. I felt her bones break, felt her quake in my arms. An’ I just … I got scared. So I hugged tighter.”

  By the time she finished, Jean could only breathe through quiet, choking sobs. It was an old wound, but it still hurt.

  “I can’t relate,” Flynn admitted. “My parents are alive, and even if they’d died, I never had any attachment to them. They never loved me, and I never loved them.”

  Jean looked up at Flynn, her eyes red and raw. “Ya ever loved anyone?” she asked pointedly. He could only shake his head. Jean nodded in acknowledgment, saying, “’Least my mama loved me.”

  “At least she did,” he agreed.

  Jean didn’t catch the envy in his voice.

  *

  A night’s wait turned into a day’s, and then another night to follow. Poe stalked the grounds of Convive, listening to the gunshots on the winds. They had softened in volume, frequency; the opposing armies were dying, but it didn’t matter who won, so long as the victors kept out of his way.

  A nearby rustling disrupted Poe’s attention, and he drew the Searing Truth as he moved to investigate. A fowl, over half his size, startled at his nearing and ran off into the woods. Poe smiled in anticipation, then took off in pursuit. As he vaulted over the bushes, ducked the branches, and leapt from stone to stone, his prey tried frantically to escape. These woods may have been its home, but Poe, too, had grown up in a forest, and was adept at stalking within. The moment he was within range, he thrust his blade forward, spearing the fowl, which wrenched the blade from Poe as it tumbled.

  Poe knelt beside the wounded creature as it struggled to breathe. “Yours is a necessary death. A contribution to my allies, in a place where the hunt has been slim. And to myself, to sustain me on my path to godhood.” He placed his hand on his blade, preparing to draw it free and let the dying fowl bleed out.

  “You’ve changed preferences.” He turned to find Zella Renivar standing in the brush. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You haven’t drawn your other sword since our landing on the Red Coast.”

  “It nearly killed me,” Poe replied dismissively. “Were it possible to bear a grudge against an inanimate object, then that may be what I now feel for it.”

  Zella knelt beside Poe and took the Searing Truth in hand. “Poor creature,” she cooed as she carefully removed the blade. “At least put it out of its misery.”

  Poe bore no sympathy for the dying fowl; if she wanted to end its suffering, she would have to do it herself. Poe expected her to further complain or fetch Chari in a futile attempt to heal the thing. To his surprise, her other hand found the grip of his blade, and she lined it up against the creature’s neck. She raised the sword up, but before she could bring it down, Poe caught both her forearms above her head.

  “You’re going to miss like that,” he told her. After adjusting her stance, and moving her closer, he whispered. “Now.”

  She struck, and the fowl was no more.

  “It’s, ah … it’s a fine blade,” she admitted, fighting off her unease. “The Searing Truth, yes? Blessed to never dull, a keepsake of the Guardian family?”

  Poe accepted his weapon back from her. “You know its history?”

  “Mine was a privileged childhood, and the fairy tales I was raised on were unconventional, to say the least.” As she spoke, Zella purposefully faced away from her recent kill. “I admit, I’ve found your carrying it to be something of a paradox. As Guardian to Heaven’s gates, it’s a natural weapon; yet ou
t of your element, it should pose as many dangers to you as to your opponent.”

  Poe wiped the blade clean, giving her a perplexed look. “As a boy, my father’s sword was far too heavy for me to wield. When I obtained the Dark Sword and bound it to my soul, that weapon became weightless, as though an extension of my arm. Were the Searing Truth blessed similarly, I’d have never relegated it to secondary.”

  This time, Zella was confused. “I feel as though we are having two different conversations.”

  “You suggest my father’s sword is somehow unreliable. Even without its singular blessing, it is a fine blade.”

  Zella pondered this for a second, and began pacing before she spotted the dead fowl and quickly turned away. “It is this: the Searing Truth is a blade that judges living souls. It is true it never dulls, but it was only meant to cleave the wicked. The blade passes through the innocent as though they were mist.”

  The tale unnerved Poe. “I have never heard this.”

  “I’m sorry,” Zella apologized. “It’s just … I thought you already knew. You are the Guardian.”

  “Was,” he corrected. “I have vacated my post.” Poe examined the blade more closely. Its gilded handle gleamed as though new, its blade razor sharp as ever. “The Searing Truth has tasted considerable blood, yet never once cut and rent no wound. My father used it more judiciously than I, but even for him, the effect was the same.”

  “Odd,” Zella mused, as Poe sheathed his blade. He lifted the dead fowl by one leg, then signaled Zella’s attention. She looked at it with disdain, though he suspected it was more for herself, for her part in the killing.

  “I could use some assistance,” he lied. Zella nodded rapidly, then took up the other leg, averting her gaze back toward Convive. As they dragged it through the forest, Poe said, “And with our return, you may pluck its feathers.”

  “I’d prefer not.”

  “Then you’re waiting until we gut it to contribute?” Zella looked sick at the prospect, but Poe was inwardly amused. She still had a long way to go.

  As they shuffled along, something cold touched Poe’s nose. He looked up to see a faint snowfall sidling through the forest canopy.

  “Perhaps, when the meat is prepared, you’ll help cook it?” Poe asked incuriously.

  “Perhaps,” came Zella’s eventual agreement.

  *

  By the next morning, a light snowfall had settled in and the battle had finally ended. Flynn led his companions through the wreckage of Convive, returning to their vantage point of days prior. A numbness had set in over their journey, for a field littered with the dead was no longer a new and startling sight; even so, a slew of bodies was scattered around them. Many of these snow-dusted soldiers had died with expressions of terror on their faces, wide-eyed disbelief that they weren’t the ones to live.

  “There are people out there,” Zella said. “Perhaps they’re helping the survivors?”

  “They’re scavengers,” Flynn replied after a moment’s observation.

  As they continued through, Zaja eyed the snowy patches uncomfortably. “Do you think it’s going to get colder up ahead?”

  “It might,” he replied. “Not very comforting, I’m sorry.”

  She nodded in acceptance. Poe knelt down to examine one of the broader patches, placing his gloved hand in it curiously. He paid no mind to the soldier half-buried nearby.

  “In colder climates, this falls from the sky in lieu of rain?”

  Poe jerked forward as a snowball struck him in the back of the head. Jean was standing several paces back, rolling a second snowball in her hands with a toothy grin. Flynn said nothing when she hurled it at Poe, who shielded himself with his cloak, but there’d been a streak of red mixed in, likely from another corpse near her feet.

  After a long hike through the dead, they came to the other side unhindered. They would not encounter such a clash again for a time, instead running afoul of smaller skirmishes before their journey brought them up a mountain pass. As the trail climbed and the air grew colder and thinner, they had a commanding view of the lands beyond. The valley below was craggy and textured, and appeared to host squat trees and other low-growing forms of plant life. It would be many miles before the terrain livened up again.

  “Soldiers advance from afar,” Chari observed through the scope of her rifle. She swung around to the other direction, and went on. “None in that direction, so far as I see. They may simply be passing through, or headed another way entirely.” She looked at Flynn, and suggested, “We could make encampment here. Wait, to be certain.”

  “We’ve already stopped too many times,” he replied.

  “It would be safer.”

  “And slower. Poe’s worries aside, the longer we take, the more things could go wrong. I don’t want to feed his insecurities, but Renivar may indeed find a candidate loyal to his cause. Or a sacrifice of Zella’s caliber with none of her reservations.”

  Chari’s mouth soured with an unspoken rebuttal. She turned to admit, “I may be in less a hurry than our companions would like. Barring absolute failure at Thoris, our resolution means finding passage to the one place I wish never to return.”

  “You were happy to have left,” he remembered.

  “That’s how you remember it?” she asked with a smile. “I wept tears of joy, didn’t I? A peaceful, protected life, and I cried with joy to be free of it.”

  “It wasn’t your life. No one knew the real Chariska Jerhas.”

  She smiled, but it soon faltered. “Am I the real Chariska Jerhas?” she asked. “Staring down the ends of a battlefield, having lost tally of how many I’ve killed to cross through?”

  Flynn didn’t want to answer. He didn’t even want to give her a choice, for fear of the real chance she might choose against him. Even so, he gave a simple offer. “You don’t have to follow us.”

  “You’re my savior, Flynn,” she reminded him. “So long as we’ve no plans to stay, I’ll follow you through Hell. I’ll brave it for you, for Jean, for…” She faltered. “I’ll brave it.”

  Chari pardoned herself, and Flynn took one last look at the horizon. Thoris was in the furthest distance, barely a cap beyond the ocean waters. But there was something familiar that way, something Flynn recognized but couldn’t put into words. It was something he hadn’t sensed in months.

  *

  The northern base of the mountain provided a broad view of the field ahead. It didn’t grant the perspective of the peak, but at least from here, Flynn could confirm that they were safe in both directions before they left the security of the pass to begin crossing inward. The greenery was vibrant here, the cliffs caked with moss fueled by a slender waterfall. As Zaja refilled her canteen in the icy flow, she glanced at Flynn to say, “At least it’s warmer down here.”

  “We are prepared to carry on, yes?” Poe asked impatiently.

  “We’ve got no reason not to,” Flynn replied.

  As they embarked across the vast, craggy valley, the wind picked up in intensity, whipping noisily through the gaps and fissures in the terrain. Their passage rose and fell ever so slightly, often obscuring any significant view of their surroundings. A sense of unease crept over Flynn, like an exposed nerve waiting to be stabbed. They had come several miles inland when they climbed a mound in the dead center, and finally saw just what they’d gotten themselves into.

  “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” Jean groaned, reaching for her mace.

  “We have come too far to retreat,” Poe followed, drawing the Searing Truth. “More, this may be beyond my skills.”

  “May be? Goddamn egomaniac.”

  Two armies were converging on the center of the field, armed with sabers and pistols, muskets fitted with bayonets, and riding horned steeds like those seen on Tryna, though far fitter and livelier. Both fanned the length of the valley, and retreating was no longer an option, for they were charging with such ferocity that the noise of their advance overpowered even the deafening winds. All objectives
vanished from Flynn’s mind, save for one: keeping everyone alive.

  “RUN!” he ordered.

  The seven raced frantically as the two sides closed in on them. Even as the terrain lowered, providing momentary safety, Shea suddenly yelled out, “Drop! Now!” before grabbing Flynn and tackling him to the ground. He felt the scrapes and bruises of the collision, but they were promptly forgotten in the volley of gunfire erupting overhead.

  “When do we move?” Zella begged.

  Shea shook her head, watching up above. “Not yet.”

  A second volley. Flynn closed his eyes and listened: he could hear bodies dropping, but a great many more were still advancing on the field. Chari attempted to creep forward, before Shea caught her by the wrist. “Wait,” she ordered. Chari nodded in uncomfortable agreement and began to settle back in, clutching her rifle tightly. Shea looked to Flynn and confided, “Last place I fancy being.”

  At the fourth volley, a soldier from the westward side was struck in his advance and crashed into the recess where they were hiding. While the soldier’s comrades vaulted above them to engage the enemy, the intruder looked at the huddled seven, and weakly reached for his weapon. Shea shot him without hesitation. “Time to move.”

  They charged onward and emerged outside as the westward army collided with them. The easterners had not stopped firing, but enough of the opposing side had closed in that they were soaking up the majority of the shots. Even so, Flynn felt something graze his arm as he released his claws in time to catch a soldier who was set to spear him with a bayonet and tear the man’s throat open.

  “They see us as the enemy!” Zella cried as she spun around in disbelief.

  “Ain’t wearin’ the same colors as them!” Jean yelled back as she smashed another attacker down before pressing onward. “Like they got the time to pick us apart?!”

  Every meter they tried to advance was made in desperation—there was no way to pick their battles, for every collision was violently forced upon them. Killing the western soldiers had only made more enemies, as their comrades were deviating to hunt down the nearest aggressors. By now, the eastern army had collided fully with the west, and the seven were now sandwiched between the two sides.