Scavenger Girl: Season of Toridia

by Jennifer Arntson

  “Please,” she begged, “let me go!”

  The reunited friends stepped aside in an effort to stay out of the prisoner’s reach. A couple of them mocked her as she passed. Flirtatious waves or kisses sent through the air were marginally worse than the others who simply turned away.

  “I didn’t do anything, I swear! Please, someone help me!” She struggled against the rope, but it did nothing.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even cry. Is this real?

  My mouth went dry, and my muscles lost all connectivity. I didn’t have a weapon, not that I knew how to use any. We were too far away and still so close. Marsh didn’t have enough arrows. We needed more men, more arrows, more—

  There are so many Woodsmen here.

  In that moment, I realized we’d not seen any women. Only men. I leaned my back against the massive trunk and clenched my eyes shut. Her pleading continued until suddenly it did not. My eyes opened wide as my ears nearly turned themselves inside out to hear her.

  Birds. Wasps. The distant laugh of a younger man. The erratic shuffling of inebriated feet. Marsh’s pounding heart. The drag of flesh across trodden rock and soil.

  A stifled cry escaped my mouth, and Marsh’s hand acted quickly to cover it. He pressed his forehead against mine. “Not here,” he whispered. I nodded, hating that we were forced to do nothing.

  The woman’s transport, a general buzzkill for the group of old friends, ended their smoldering conversation. After they’d dispersed, it took me a little longer to compose myself before I could will my body into motion. When I did, I placed one foot down simply to put the other ahead of it. I didn’t pay attention to where I was headed. I was too preoccupied with the vile nature of men and what depths of evil their minds could reach.

  Marsh leaped to me and dragged me down into the brush, breaking me from my thoughts. “Focus. We need to get to the main road, but you have to stay low.” He pointed in a direction slightly off course from where I was headed. I nodded, but the woman’s voice haunted me with every breath I took.

  Just like Kali, that woman was somebody. Just like Alux, the punishment would not fit her crime, if she had even committed one.

  I need to ignore this. I needed to focus, to stay alert.

  I clenched my teeth together and pushed my talents to their limits. As much as I tried, I couldn’t hear anything but my heart pounding in my ears. My vision blurred with the onslaught of tears pooling between my upper and lower eyelids. After a while, snot, thick and salty, flowed over the margin of my lips. The goo rendered my sense of smell useless. My untampered emotions crippled my only advantage, my only hope of survival.

  We’re never going to make it out of here.

  I sat in the grass in a well-sheltered area, too rattled to move.

  “What’s the matter?” Marsh asked.

  “I can’t control it,” I answered. “I’m too emotional.”

  “Una, you need to calm down. You’re doing fine. If it makes you feel better, I’m not all right with leaving her either, but we are not equipped for a rescue mission.”

  “I know. I just can’t—” I rubbed my face, smearing tears and dirt and sweat across it.

  “We’ve got to be close. I need you to pull it together.”

  I tried to calm myself by regulating my breathing. Mother used to sit with me on her lap in front of the fire when I was little. Like most children, I suppose, I’d have the occasional bad dream about monsters or death, or something equally dreadful, and wake my mother out of her sleep. Healers couldn’t heal nightmares, but they could help a scared kid through it. She would say, “Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth,” and with her gentle prompting, my head would clear, and my eyes would eventually grow heavy. Those nights, I’d cuddle up next to her in her bed for the remainder of the night. Something about being close to her calmed my spirit every time.

  I breathed in. I breathed out. In my head, I heard her instruction, soft, understanding, and sincere.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  With my lungs full of air, I held it. When I exhaled, my internal conflict gave way to self-preservation. A moment of clarity would be all I would earn. A new sound came from the distance. It was faint but constant. It didn’t come near, nor did it move farther away.

  I opened my eyes. “I hear something.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe squatters on the road.” Ready to be out of the wood, I pushed myself up onto my feet and ran. Marsh, cursing my choice, charged after me. We tore through the brush, paying no mind to the thorns or branches taking bites of our clothes and skin. The range of vocal tones, although diverse, sharpened in their composition.

  They could be Woodsmen.

  Blood surged through my veins when I saw the small figures obscured by the ways of the wood. I counted the tones in voices I heard.

  Five of them. I can take five.

  No, seven.

  With Marsh right behind me, the sound ahead became sharper. Smaller. A cluster of moans, cries, and labored breathing not of men or women but…

  Then I saw them.

  Children.

  I lost all peripheral vision. The closer I got to them, the more the scene unfolded before me. They were fixed to an iron gate with ropes, strips of fabric, and reeds, stringing them across the entry to the Woodsmen’s road. The ones too big to be added were tied to trees, while others were bound to rocks. A half dozen boys and girls were cuffed together at the wrists, creating a crude human chain stretching from the gate to a diseased evergreen a few yards over. The lifeless body of a girl hung by the neck above, but I quickly realized she was not the only one, nor was she the first to expire.

  Marsh’s stomach emptied its minimal contents at his feet. Once the heaving slowed, he wiped the bile from his chin and whipped out his blade. He ran past me, tossing his extra one in the grass at my feet. We didn’t consider a strategy—we wanted results. The first child I cut free was a girl, but whoever put her there didn’t make it easy. Her hands were bound in different places. They tied her right arm to a tree, and after I made quick work of the rope, she still had the knot around her wrist. She said nothing as I carefully cut her other hand free from the girl next to her.

  A Citizen forced me to spin and face him. “You need to stop. Right now.”

  I yanked my elbow from his grip. “I’m not leaving these children here like this.”

  “You don’t know what is going on here.”

  “I know enough.” I sawed at another binding, cutting a little boy free.

  “They are here for a reason. They will be released when the time is right.”

  “Tell her!” I pointed up in the tree with the tip of my blade. Her body, gray and bloated, twisted in the breeze. As she rotated by the rope around her neck, her empty eye sockets and slack jaw brought bile to the back of my tongue.

  The Citizen grunted. “What do you plan to do with them after you release them?”

  I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know.

  Gods, this blade is dull!

  He grabbed my arm again. “Don’t you get it? They will pay the price for your intervention! They’ll be killed for your actions!”

  I shoved him back. “By who? Cowards who hide in the shade?” I spat, yanking my arm away.

  “This is not the old world, Miss Una. You need to trust me.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  He turned away.

  “Who are you?”

  “You need to flee before you can’t.”

  “I’m not leaving them here. You can help us, or you can leave.” I sawed at the rope with more intensity.

  The man paced, cursing under his breath.

  A crowd gathered loosely along the road. I didn’t care. Their apathy and indifference meant nothing. It served no one and gave permission to the evil to flourish. As far as I was concerned, they were no better than the Woodsmen who bound children here. The man advocating for the men was probably the worst
among them.

  This is why the Woodsmen didn’t need a perimeter fence to keep trespassers out.

  The tree line marked their territory. The aging gate and well-traveled road existed long before the outlaws, but it resided within the shade, so they claimed it and no one stood against them taking it.

  No one other than my brother and me.

  “Damn it,” the man shouted, no longer trying to be discreet. “You’re making a mistake!” He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me back.

  I threw my head back into his face. Releasing his hold, he covered his broken nose, blood pouring down his chin. Ignoring the blade in my hand, I kicked him in the groin. He doubled over, and my teeth ground together at the sight of the protruding bones along the back of his neck.

  Forget his jugular. I want to rip his spine out of his back.

  I tempered my desire and shoved him into the dirt instead. “This is called doing the right thing! Touch me again, and I’ll take your hands.”

  With the man temporarily disabled, I continued my task. We were running out of time. While he warned me, someone else notified the Woodsmen. That’s how criminals worked. In groups. My pulse quickened, and sweat made the blade in my hand slip. I quit being careful cutting their bindings; I’d nurse their wounds after I freed them. I paid less attention to their comfort and more to their freedom.

  Marsh sliced through numerous bindings while I cursed the stranger who ate away my time. I envied Marsh’s strength and counted it among my assets as I struggled to find a more efficient way to work my blade.

  “Please don’t,” the boy begged as I traced the ropes holding him to a tree.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart. We’ll get you free.” I sawed the dulling blade back and forth over the thinnest part of the braid until the muscles of my arm burned in protest.

  His fearful eyes stared over my shoulder and into the woods beyond.

  I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings. Gifted with extra sensitive senses, I pushed them aside to dismantle a roped cuff. “Almost done—”

  The cold chill of a blade’s point pressed against the side of my throat. My arm stopped, and I shut my eyes and clenched my teeth together. I gave up without a fight, dropping my blade in the dirt. I raised my hands slowly, making myself defenseless.

  “No! Una!” Marsh wailed.

  “Go ahead,” a deep voice threatened as he turned me to face my brother. “Give me a reason to push this just a little bit deeper.”

  I winced as his weapon, much sharper than mine, opened the tender flesh of my neck. “Marsh. Don’t move.”

  Behind him, a man stood with an arrow drawn on my brother’s back.

  And the crowd watching from the road did nothing.

  Chapter 19

  I lay on my side, a hood over my head and my hands bound behind my back. My captor kept me still with his dirt-encrusted boot resting across my neck. While I gave up easily, Marsh did not. It only took one man to subdue me, but my brother required four. That’s what it sounded like, anyway. Stronger than they assumed him to be, or more stupid, they worked to bring him down. They could have killed him, but for some unknown reason, they kept him alive.

  The murmured concerns of gawkers and cowards in the distance did nothing but let the handful of Woodsmen control the whole thing uncontested. There were plenty of Citizens to overpower them, but they did nothing. My contempt for them rose as the soft cries of the children we let loose waited for instruction from our enemies. Too scared to run, they submitted to them in hopes for what, a lighter punishment? Nothing the men said led me to believe we’d be dismissed for a misunderstanding.

  We all knew what happened, and it made me burn wild with anger at the mere thought of such atrocities. The pressure eased off my throat, and someone crudely lifted me up.

  “Let’s go.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” I warned.

  “I’m not the one tied up,” he said, pushing me forward. I stumbled down the road, listening to a couple of them grunting under a weight, which I assumed to be my unconscious brother. A crack of a whip and a child’s burst of tears ensured the others kept the pace without need for a second warning.

  The noose around my neck and the fist holding it firmly against my spine forced me along the path. If I tripped, I was caught by my throat and lifted to my feet by it. Between my restricted airway and the stagnant air recycled under the black hood, I feared I would suffocate before we reached our destination.

  A tactic to unnerve prisoners, perhaps?

  If it were, it didn’t make the feeling any less real. How could I be so stupid? We didn’t accomplish anything other than getting ourselves kidnaped. Nobody knew we were here. Calish thought I was safe at home. What would he think when he returned and we were gone? He wouldn’t expect we’d been captured by Woodsmen.

  My gods, we’ve been captured by Woodsmen.

  My mind spiraled with questions I wouldn’t ask. What were they going to do to us? What were they going to do to these children? The Citizen said they would pay for my crimes. I would not cry and beg. I saw what happened when a prisoner tried to prevent the inevitable.

  I’m not weak.

  Even bound and blinded, I had advantages. Ironically, the greatest one was being a woman. A helpless woman. The thought made my knuckles pop. I slowed, and my escort grabbed my shoulder to force me forward. Testing my theory, I changed my cadence. When I got up to pace, he withdrew his hand; if I lagged, he put it on me to push me.

  That’s it, you overconfident goon.

  Letting him feel the bravado of his control, I only let him believe he was superior. A darkened hood prevented me from mapping our position, but it gave me privacy to close my eyes and concentrate—on him.

  Permission granted.

  His thoughts lay right on top. I didn’t have to search for them. My captor would not harm us, nor would his men. He lacked such level of authority. Even though Marsh fought back, he didn’t kill anyone, and that limited the goon’s options. The Woodsmen had rules. They also had ranks. The man behind me had goals.

  Having no orders, he planned to contain us for someone of status. Which person, I couldn’t tell. He listed the pros and cons of each against the other. Who would reward him more for keeping the display intact. Confident he’d have the choice between respect or women, he wanted something else. Something he lovingly called candy. He craved it more than sex, food, or water. He needed it more than air.

  He did anything he could for a taste. The tales of his romance with the substance layered in his mind. He traded his body for it. Recently, he killed for it. No cost proved too high. Once he had it, he’d be transformed. The flavor never lasted long enough, though. He’d inhale its sweetness then spend his waking hours finding ways to taste it again. Capturing us gave him opportunity for endless rewards, although he would not be as foolish as the man before him. His predecessor took too much, and his body couldn’t handle it. That’s how the man behind me was promoted; the position opened due to another man’s death. Once payment was made, he swore to himself he’d limit his pleasure to one candy-reed a day.

  I backed out of his memory, listening instead to his consciousness of the moment. “Capturing these two and the children of the display has got to impress somebody. I bet my reward will double. Or triple. Perhaps I’ll be paid for every head I bring.”

  Such a hungry person would never be satisfied with rations. I’d bet my freedom his plan would fail. I had no doubt his position would be available by sundown.

  “This does not end well for you,” I warned him.

  “Shut up,” he said smugly.

  “What have they promised you?”

  “I said, shut up.”

  “Sakenbrush?”

  He chuckled. “Maybe if you’re a good girl, you’ll get a taste of the good stuff.” With his lips pressed against the hood, he purred, “I might share, considering you’re the reason I’ll get mine.”

  “Dead men don’t share
.”

  He smacked me in the back of the head. “Fuck you.”

  So, he doesn’t want my advice? Fine.

  I’d consider one less Woodsman a win for society. We weren’t going to die, at least not yet, so instead of talking or spending any more time in his memories, I focused on our surroundings. Smells. Sounds. Heat. If Marsh and I escaped, we wouldn’t have time to waste running in circles. He certainly wasn’t capable of paying attention.

  Best I could tell, we traveled down the road we spent all day hiding from. Stopping at some sort of checkpoint, our captors embellished the tale of our arrest and made sure everyone knew who defended the Woodsmen’s name. Congratulations were had at our expense before a general hush fell among them.

  “Where are we gonna put ’em?”

  “The rack. Where else would they go?”

  “Rack’s full.”

  “What? Did we have a raid?”

  “No, man. Haven’t you heard? We’ve been filling it with women for the next Whiteman’s return.”

  They made the plan sound like a good thing, but a menacing tone woven throughout their glee suggested the women in the rack wouldn’t feel the same.

  After a short discussion, the men decided to keep the children in the sheep pen, but Marsh and I would be put in the stables with the “other livestock” until the proper people were notified.

  I found it hard to hold my tongue. These men were not in charge of doling out their skewed form of justice. No, these men were expendable. They didn’t know it, though. Like a box of mice, they busied themselves with standing on top of other vermin. The men of real power hid far behind tied-up children and checkpoints manned by cocky criminals. Part of me wondered if they were here at all.

  * * *

  The smell of the stable was similar to the Authority prisons, only worse. The heat and lack of water contributed to the odor, and the sour odor of my escorts didn’t make the experience any more pleasant. Leading me into a horse stall, the man behind me held me steady. He removed the noose from my neck and with it the fear I had that he might hang me by it. He set me down somewhat carefully on a straw-covered floor, kicking my legs out straight. Maybe he wanted me kept in good condition. Rusted wheels ground against an unsmooth track. The heavy barn door closed with a thud that made the air around me shutter.