Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Slumped against the bed frame, she stared at her wrist and drew her breaths in a series of short gasps trying not to move at all. The initial wave of anguish passed to a momentary calm. Huffing rapid breaths, she forced herself to focus. Concentration demanded her body stop swelling. Her inflated hand receded back to normal size.

  With a grimace and a twist, she pulled. A blinding flash of agony and another wail came as her bones ground over each other and her hand slipped free.

  The cuffs clattered against the bedframe. Althea fell on her side, staring at the lump in front of her face that used to be a hand. Her heartbeat echoed in the damaged flesh, but brought a wide smile to her face. For several minutes, she lay collapsed on the moldy mattress, the dank smell of it barely registering through the pain. She stared over the grey cloth at blurry strips of sunlight on the wall of the cistern, the sound of drops falling in water grew loud. Althea blinked, noticing the light had shifted inches upward from where she remembered it, telling her she had lost consciousness for several minutes. Her hand throbbed, again blown up at least twice its size and dark purple.

  Her delirium had passed, and with it the blinding pain had faded to a background annoyance. She forced herself to sit up, cradling her wounded limb to her chest. Her skin warmed as she focused on setting it back to rights. Tissues redrew themselves and spidery wisps of white bone-shapes spread open as she flexed her fingers. The red tint of muscle slid up and over them, then skin.

  All was whole.

  Althea opened her eyes in time to watch the hemorrhage recede back to the normal color of her skin. She kneaded the soreness out of her wrist and could not help herself but stick out a tongue at the little metal thing she had just defeated. Out of spite, she locked the bloody end around another part of the frame, so no one would ever be trapped by it again.

  Ignoring the soreness in her arm, she scrambled down the ladder and plunged her legs into the icy water. There was no telling how long she had been out after fainting, and she wasted no time crawling back through the narrow pipe from whence she had first arrived in this dreadful place. Her hands touched earth first, as she crawled out and stood in the ankle-deep stream.

  The air was beautiful.

  Althea leaned back and let the wind wrap about her, loving every tickle of hair or leather scrap as it danced around. It was late afternoon, and quiet. Her joy at freedom faded to worry as she remembered Aurora’s promise to come and find her. She was again her own person, and she wanted it to stay that way. If someone was coming for her, she would be far away from here when they arrived.

  unning.

  It was something Althea had become quite accustomed to these days. She sprinted through the false forest, which turned out to be larger than she imagined. Her pace changed with the terrain, slowing as her bare feet skidded over mossy rocks, stepped through undergrowth, or scaled the occasional fallen tree.

  One such log provided a place to rest for a moment as well as a bountiful nest of squirming white grubs. Sitting astride it like a horse, she cradled the agate arrowhead in both hands, thinking of Den as she popped the little things into her mouth like fine grapes. Aurora said something about finding her the same way she looked at him. Perhaps she could somehow get a sense of where to go. She clasped her hands around the charm and lifted it to her face, closed her eyes, and aligned her thoughts on the desire to find Den. A glimmer of sadness came out of nowhere, the kind of resigned melancholy that comes with being forced to do something one did not want to do.

  She resisted the emotion and winced as she tried to bend her power to tell her which way to go. A manifestation of warmth spread over her bare shoulders and neck from behind, and she smiled, picturing Den’s arm around her. Althea feared he had given up on her and had resigned himself to join with Yala. Tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes as she tried to force the thought she was still alive to him. She didn’t believe Zhar. Den liked her.

  A heavy grunt followed a moist blast of hot air on her back that threw her hair forward. Her eyes snapped open and she spun. The dog man perched on the log right behind her, muzzle sniffing. It’s right eye, clearly machine, glowed behind her reflected face. Tiny orange lines and writing scrolled along through a ruby sphere the size of her fist.

  Her breathing stopped for an instant, and she leaned her weight into her hands against the moldy bark, lifting one leg in an agonizing, slow dismount of her pine steed. Althea sensed hunger and pain. Angry and hungry mixed in such a beast were not a good combination for her health. Drool squeezed out from between its steel teeth. The foul odor of rotten blood clung to it, no doubt from the places where metal warred with its flesh; crude cybernetics grafted into a genetic experiment gone awry.

  A pulse of radiant calm made it hesitate long enough for her to drop to the ground and back away. It shook off the forced emotion and growled, and she once again sprinted. Amid the blur of leaves and scattered bits of sunlight, she did not care where her feet landed. Weaving around the trees, she exploited its bulk and took sudden corners it could not follow. It fell over twice on tight turns, and crashed into a stump on another, yet still it did not relent. Starvation was a powerful motivator.

  With each shock of her foot striking the ground, she wondered if this justified murder. If it caught her it would kill and likely eat her. Was killing it first justified? Her moral quandary came to a sudden halt at the sense of a graze whiffing through her hair. She grabbed the top of her head but found nothing.

  Confusion did not have time to set in as an explosion from behind threw her forward. The roar of fire mixed with the wounded yelp of an injured dog. She crashed to the ground on her chest, rolled head over heels into a tree, and wound up facing to the rear upside down. The canid came to a halt a few yards behind her, lying on its mauled face and breathing in a slow, raspy gurgle.

  Althea sat up, forcing herself to stand through the pain of a dozen splinters in her legs and back. What remained of a small tree waved back and forth, blown in half amid a cloud of smoke some distance behind the dog. At that moment, she realized what had touched her hair―a tripwire that had she been any taller, would have gone off.

  The creature caught the brunt of it; the charge blasted the skin from the left side of its head and reduced its arm to a mangled ruin. It looked up at her, menacing eyes now pleading. She examined the blood on her legs from the wooden flechettes embedded there. Biting her lower lip, she wiggled and plucked out the largest of them before she staggered around the wounded creature. It made no attempt to keep its gaze on her.

  Pity filled her heart, and she collapsed by its head. It shifted, licking her foot with a slimy tongue. Althea wondered if it had enough reason to know it was at her mercy, or just wanted to taste her before it died. Regardless, she put her hand on its forehead and it became unconscious, as she wanted it to be.

  This creature’s body felt strange in her thoughts. Somewhat human, yet somewhat not, it contained a life force nonetheless. It had thoughts, crude and primitive like an animal on the surface, nudged along by an undercurrent of ration somewhere deep inside. She held on with two fistfuls of fur as her body convulsed from the power she forced into the thing. In the blackness of her closed eyes, she visualized its damaged shapes flowing together to become whole. The mass of its being coalesced upon the canvas of her senses as shifting amoeba of various colors merged. Black spots poisoned the overall form, straight and unnatural things with lines that did not feel organic.

  The metal, it had to go.

  She forced her fingers under the first plate she found, between the dead material and the hot, infected skin. Bracing her knee for leverage, she wrenched it loose from the flesh as she commanded the living body to divest itself of pollution. Wires and cables stranded out through the wound as she lifted and tossed the bloody hunk to the side. One by one, she pulled and tore at the metal bits with the urgency of a child opening gifts. The eye was the last thing to go. Althea studied the inorganic black strands threaded deep into its brain. She coul
d not simply rip it out. At her urging, the canid’s body repelled the device over the course of minutes, and she lifted the crimson sphere and its dangling cobweb of wiring away as it exuded forth.

  Placing both hands over the empty socket, she shuddered with exertion and felt a new eyeball swell up to touch her palm. The rest of the gory cavities closed, forms pure and untainted by blackness.

  Arching her back, she reached up behind herself and wiggled splinters out one by one. Points of pain, little more than annoyances, winked in and out as her body purged smaller invisible bits of wood she could not find or reach. She sprawled there in the mulch, half-awake and coated in sweat from the effort. The snake-oil man had forced her to work to the point of nosebleeds from the strain; the amount of harm in this creature had almost gotten there. The world blurred out of focus as she stared past her hand. Althea slumped face down in dead leaves, and slipped into unconsciousness.

  Althea sat up and rubbed her eyes, calm and tired until she spotted the dog crouching about ten yards away, staring at her. Prey instinct chased all traces of sleep out of her as she realized she had been helpless next to the thing that had tried to eat her. Anger and pain were absent from its mind, replaced with confusion. When Althea made eye contact, emotion changed to gratitude. It lowered its head at her, this thing not quite man and not quite canine, and backed through a curtain of foliage, away into the woods.

  Heavy thuds and snaps reverberated through the trees as it bounded off. She smiled at the wavering patch of plants, debating if she should move or fall over and nap again. After several minutes of sitting and staring at her legs, she wobbled upright amid the scattered bits of bloody cyberware. She picked up a metal strut with a length of wire hanging from the end, and held it out in front of her as she staggered forward―another of Reed’s tricks to find trip lines.

  The sound of running water changed her course. A tiny creek bubbled through the trees, sunken into the soil in a channel that might have been natural. She sat on the edge, letting her feet dangle in as she scooped water over her face. The ribbon of grimy cloth around her chest soaked dark as she drank. The effort it had taken to mend the beast had taxed her entire body into aching; all she wanted now was more sleep, despite the painful hunger.

  “Hey, lookit thar.” A man’s voice came from behind her, too close.

  “Whazzat? Girl?” replied another.

  Someone cleared their throat. “Dunno. Could be. Blonde, worth a lot na matter wot ‘tis.”

  Damn. Althea closed her eyes. Only slavers would say that. She brought her feet up under her and stood, bracing for the next few minutes of hard running. As she started to move, the click of a gun came from behind.

  “Don you run, ya hear? We kin sell yas even if yas gots one leg.”

  “It girl.” The first voice again.

  The throat clearer spoke again. “How you know dat?”

  “Skirt.”

  The sound of a punch cracked into the air; she whirled around on three men. Only two were standing. One wore camo pants beneath a leather vest studded with all manner of trinkets and dangling objects. He laughed at the man on the ground while aiming a bolt rifle in Althea’s direction.

  The man that looked to be the source of the attack wore a skirt made of irregular panels of cloth knit together and covered with things Rachel called license plates.

  “Go away.” Althea tried to summon up her psionics―Aurora called it that, not magic―but she was too tired.

  Even the attempt hurt.

  “Ho my.” The man with the rifle shuddered as he saw the glow. “Look.” He pointed with a gasp.

  Althea sighed at the irony. Now she had no hesitation at using her powers to escape, but lacked the strength to call them. She would let them capture her, and deal with them after she slept and got her wind back. As weak as she was, a day or two locked up would only serve as protection. A degree of comfort came with their knowing her as the Prophet; she would not be added to a harem or harmed.

  “Yes, I am the Prophet.” The words came heavy with sleep, and she trudged over to them.

  Bouncing with giddiness, they surrounded her and examined their find. A hand on her head pulled back on her hair enough to make her look up. They forced her eyes wider with their thumbs. Seeing the light up close, they cheered. When they shoved her to the ground and gathered her arms behind her back, she tried again to radiate fear. Fatigue reduced the emanation to a point it only made them nervous.

  Rope circled her wrists and then her ankles as they bound her. She fought in her mind to remain calm; after a full sleep, she could order them to release her. Healing the mutant had drained her to a state beyond exhaustion. She let her face fall into the soft wet mulch of the forest floor, biding her time. In an odd sort of way, the ground felt comfortable.

  An eerie whistle passed overhead, followed by the sound of a gunshot. It seemed strange and unfamiliar, not as loud as the guns she was used to hearing. She realized the odd hissing had been the projectile as it passed overhead, making it sound as if it was quite a bit faster than most bullets. A wet slap from a second shot came from the man in the skirt as he gurgled and collapsed, clutching his side.

  “She’s ours!” The one in camo yelled and fired at something.

  Hot brass fell on her, finding the spot of exposed back between her excuse for a shirt and the skirt. She squealed and rolled, absorbing an unintentional kick to the stomach as the other man scrambled to run away. He tripped over her and hit the ground, managing to crawl a few feet before the strange gun went off three times in rapid succession. His back burst in gouts of crimson, and he collapsed. Bent in half, Althea spotted the source of the conflict behind long gouts of bright blue fire.

  A man stood ten paces away, one hand holding a boxy handgun with little lights on it aimed at the scavs who found her. A coat of dull brown leather framed him like a cape; heavy boots crushed the leaves as he approached. His eyes hid behind a band of silver plastic that caught the fading sunlight. A few days’ worth of beard ran along the ridge of a chiseled chin, and an array of small boxes and objects burdened his belt. Travel-grime had darkened his skin, though Althea knew he was like her, a scarce commodity out here slavers called “white.”

  She shuddered at the tug through the ether as each man died, and stared at the ground. The icy claw at her heart hurt worse with her hands pinned behind her. She struggled to free herself, wanting nothing more than to run again and leave all of these men behind. Already tired, she wound up on her chest, heaving gasps of air into the leaves as she squirmed. The strange man walked up, stuffing his pistol into a holder on his hip next to a huge knife. The cold leather of his coat gathered in a heap on the backs of her legs as he crouched over her.

  He picked at the rope around her wrists, loosening it.

  “Thank you.” She went limp and smiled, though he could not see her face.

  He pulled at her arms, looking her over. “Damn, you’re a special kind of scrawny, aren’t you?”

  The voice, dry and drawn out, seemed like it belonged to a much older man. Before she could pull her hands free, the ropes drew closed, with a jerk that made her yelp. He was tying her wrists tighter.

  Althea wailed, trying to look back at him. “What are you doing? Please don’t, please let me go!”

  The binding on her ankles constricted as well. “Damn bandits can’t tie a knot to save their asses. You could’a gotten loose pretty easy.”

  She writhed. “Ow! It hurts. It’s too tight.”

  “Don’t fight and it won’t hurt so much. I ain’t gonna harm ya. Just collectin’ ya.”

  Breathing ceased for a moment. “Are you Aurora’s friend?”

  “Don’t got friends. Ain’t no such thing. Friends are just enemies that don’t have the balls to admit they’d cut your throat. You sit tight a minute.” He gave her a light smack on the ass. “Don’t slither off.”

  Fear became anger as he wandered off. Grunting and wriggling, she twisted and squirmed, but succeeded on
ly in making the ropes pinch. Her mood returned to panic as a scrap of burlap blocked her eyes and knotted tight against the back of her head. Hands clasped under her arms lifted her onto her feet, and after a few seconds, up and over his shoulder like a sack of grain. A dense, musky fragrance clung to him, a mixture of spice and sweet tobacco.

  She struggled, held in place by a firm arm across the back of her legs and her own weight pulling her down. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To your new boss.”

  Her wriggling ceased. “Owner?”

  The man laughed; a dry evil thing that made her shiver. “Nah, kid. You got lucky. The Freddie wants to hire you. I’m here to arrange the interview.”

  She bounced as he walked, occasionally testing her ability to slip loose. “Hire? What does that mean?”

  “You know about tradin’ or money?”

  “Yes,” she said with a meek whisper.

  “Hirin’s when you give a person money in return for them doin’ work.”

  Althea thought for a moment, while trying to shake the blindfold off. “It is wrong to make people pay for my help.”

  His conversational nature ended with a light double pat on the back of her thigh. “You can take that up with The Freddie.”

  he walk felt like it took hours. Althea went limp after a few minutes of pointless struggling, dangling over his shoulder. She came close to crying, but the eerie lack of elation the man displayed kept her too frightened. Most who captured the Prophet could not contain their joy; this man radiated no stronger emotion than if he had found a shiny rock to take home. His fingers dug five numbing points into the side of her right thigh as he held her legs tight to his chest. The constant motion while hanging half upside down made her feel sick. She gurgled as he took a series of hard steps descending an incline and swung around a corner. The hiss of a breeze was somewhere above her, but she felt no wind. The tingle of the energy field swept through her legs, and the air grew warm and dry once more. Back in the Badlands dust, his boots scuffed as he carried her somewhere she could not see.