Nightfall

by Elizabeth Hartwell

  But that doesn’t mean they want to sacrifice their lives for a foolish clash that will result in nothing but death. A tear trickles down Cerena’s cheek, and my decision is made. “Go fuck yourself, Bane.”

  I can feel Bane following my gaze, and he chuckles darkly. “If you join me, I could save her. She would kneel at your feet, call you king. She’d worship you, do whatever your deepest desires wish. And I do mean anything. Or . . .”

  Bane drops his hand, and suddenly, both armies charge toward each other, blood the only thought remaining in their minds. I’m trapped, helplessly caught between them. Battle cries tear forth from a hundred thousand throats, all thought of mercy or quarter forgotten in the scream.

  “I am made flesh, war, death, famine, pestilence,” Bane says before disappearing. I turn, desperate to grab him, but I can’t move.

  The cacophony of the charging armies quickly drowns out my scream of terror as I find myself caught between, soon to be crushed by the rolling charge of two unstoppable juggernauts. Death rises on those screams, and I look to the sky, my voice adding to the chaos.

  “Nooooo!”

  I’m on my feet, my hands bunched into fists in front of me, ready to fight invisible enemies, but instead of the steamy stench of my dream battlefield, blood and death and iron filling my nostrils in a gut-wrenching combination, I’m smacked in the face by the scent of pine trees and the chill of night air.

  I start to shiver, unable to stop myself as cold air, fear, and adrenaline combine to send my body into uncontrollable shakes. I’m still a ‘city boy’, apparently, my few weeks out in the Scorched Earth not removing a lifetime’s worth of instinct and habits of which I cannot even remember the origins. Relaxing my hands, I hug myself as my two bedmates, Tym and Lance, snuffle and turn over.

  “You okay?”

  The soft, feminine voice behind me still makes me jump in panic, blindly striking out. Luckily, the accidental target is well-trained, and before I can connect, my hand is caught, twisted behind my back, and I’m turned back around, guided into the trees. “Shh, Brandon. It was just a nightmare.”

  Cerena. I don’t remember much of my prior life, but I feel her. She’s the other half of my soul, the cool water on the burning fire of my fear and panic. She’s so much more than that, and if it weren’t that her very importance scares the hell out of me, I’d think even more of her.

  I pull away, and she lets me go, letting me step away. I wring my hand out, glad that I didn’t do something I’d regret later. Looking at her in the moonlight that filters through the trees, her black clothing and black hair make her face seem as if it’s floating in the night.

  She’s so beautiful it makes my soul ache, but right now all I can feel is anger and shame. Since my rebirth, I’ve struggled, not just with the physical changes but with dreams and mental issues. And my powers, which I used so casually those first few minutes, have become locked behind a rigid wall in my brain.

  And to have been woken up by a nightmare . . . what am I, a child still?

  “I’m fine,” I mutter, my eyes catching a subtle movement by her left side. Her hand relaxes, and I realize that she’d reached for one of her swords, or maybe one of the knives that she also likes to carry for close work. She’s not fully equipped—none of us are—but she’s still deadly. “You really that worried about me?”

  “Since you came back, you’ve been . . . different,” Cerena admits. “The idea that you’ve got the power of not just one but two gods running through your blood isn’t exactly something I’m used to. And the other things you’ve showed . . . they’re a bit weird, you know?” She chuckles, remembering the first demonstration I gave of my new abilities.

  I feel heat fill me at the memory. Coming back from the dead to find a beautiful woman washing your balls before you take her into the shower for epic sex is quite the way to wake up, and adjusting the temperature with your mind makes it even more unique.

  Cerena runs a hand through her long hair, smiling a little. “Then again, until recently, I thought all these gods and goddesses were just fairy tales. So, you wanna talk about it?”

  “Your ignorance?” I shoot back, emotionally defensive despite knowing Cerena doesn’t mean anything by her questions other than to help me. I’m just too shaken up, with too many emotions fighting inside me all at once to know how to react.

  “No,” she says, trying not to sound pissed off but failing. “Your dream.”

  “No,” I growl back, turning around. “You wouldn’t understand anyway. Fuck, I barely understand it.”

  “I might not understand, but I can listen,” Cerena says. She takes a deep breath and gives me her best smile. In most instances, it’d work. Despite her tough, badass outer persona, she’s got an angelic smile that’s only enhanced by the small scar under her left eye. I really don’t think she’s aware of just how often she’s able to sweet-talk us into doing things. “Come on, Brandon. It could help.”

  Not this time, though.

  “I said I’m fine!” I hiss, stalking off into the woods before she can follow me. As I make my way between the trees, I feel my anger pulsing behind my eyeballs.

  How can she understand? How can she understand that while she might have had her parents taken from her, she was still raised in an environment where she had people who cared for her?

  During our movements through the mountains, all three of them have filled me in again on their life stories and colored in the parts that we didn’t know before.

  I know more about Lance’s history of being a grifter, scoundrel, and overall sneak thief than I’ve ever wanted to. He’s filled us in for hours with his tall tales of places he’s robbed, scams he’s pulled, and when he thinks Cerena’s not listening, women he’s seduced. Listening to him, he’s eaten more pussy than porridge in the course of his life.

  Tym has been quieter, telling me little bits about his past and his skills. Those big hammers he carries are more than just weapons of war but symbols for almost all he is. Strength personified, he’s been a merchant, a blacksmith, and a mercenary.

  But Cerena . . . she’s spent her entire life focused on one goal, one path. Now, it’s as shattered as my memories, and she’s filled me in enough to realize that whatever she thinks she knows of pain and loneliness, she doesn’t know a damn thing when I look at the tattered pieces of my memory.

  It’s even worse now than it was when I first awoke. I guess dying and being reincarnated fucks with your memory because as the days have passed, I remember less and less of anything prior to a year or so ago. It’s honestly infuriating because I know that right before I died, I remembered nearly everything.

  But now it’s just a big hole. I’m aware the hole is there. I’m aware of what used to be in the hole, but I can’t recall what the contents of the hole actually were. It’s like forgetting how to read. I can open a computer file, look at the words . . . but the shapes on the screen mean nothing to me, even if it’s a story that I used to enjoy.

  That’s what it’s like now. Before, I could recall my friends, my life history . . . but now it’s like the blend of dark and light powers inside me has wiped the entire slate clean, leaving me a new creature with no history, no past, just a vast amount of power that keeps building inside me.

  But without understanding my past, how can I have any chance of controlling my future?

  And I’m weak. I’ve barely gotten a decent night’s sleep in three weeks. Every night, it’s the same dreams of death and destruction. They’re never the same, but they’re always terrible.

  I’ve watched as towns have been tortured.

  I’ve been forced to sit idle as armies ravage entire towns, claiming prisoners when they wish and slaughtering the rest.

  I’ve dreamed horrors that defy all understanding, things that should have driven me insane.

  I’ve come to fear closing my eyes, simply because I know what’s waiting for me.

  But I’m just supposed to talk about my feelings . . .
>
  “Fuck that,” I growl, my hand flying out on its own toward a tree. I don’t even touch it, but when my hand’s still a good half-foot away, I feel this force project out, tearing a hole through the thick trunk and boring through the tree, a flash of dark fire appearing a moment later as I sear the wood.

  There’s no sound, which is in itself scary. I just punched a hole through a tree that’s nearly perfectly round, and there was no sound at all. The only reaction was from the forest, which seemed to quiet as everything felt the passing of death through their homeland.

  Shaken, I pull my hand back. What the fuck . . . what was that?

  I’ve shown some powers, mostly a sort of limited telekinesis and more stamina than I had in the past. But this . . .

  There’s no way I can tell the others about this.

  Chapter 3

  Cerena

  For the first time since our midnight escape from Solace and our hurried flight northward, I feel relatively content and comfortable.

  It’s been a rough escape, nearly as bad as some of my training ‘missions’ in the Academy. With our initial idea of hitting up a supply cache we found on our initial trip to Bane squashed, we’ve been scrambling. We’re lacking in fresh clothes, tools, and even weapons.

  At least the guys were able to ‘liberate’ my swords. While the utility knives we have are fine, nothing helps me feel better than a set of twin swords ready to go.

  But it looks like things might be turning our way. Two days ago, we found a cave in the mountains, and after carefully checking it for residents, we’ve settled in for a short stay.

  It’s nowhere near as comfortable as my old apartment in the Hunter district of Solace. There, I had a beautiful mattress, a kitchen that had a roughly-hewn but solid table, and a mysterious couch with a frame made from pre-war metal. Plain, often unused, but a luxury when compared to a cave in the foothills of the Northwest Mountain Range.

  But I can’t complain. The cave’s better than sleeping in the open, or even some of the ruined buildings that I’ve used over the past few months. With its wide mouth, smooth floor that’s dusted with dirt, and good views of the valley below us, the cave’s an ideal place for us to rest and try to figure out what we’re going to do next.

  We have to get away from the Hunter teams searching for us, but even I can’t predict how long they’ll keep combing the mountains trying to track us. I’m certainly wanted for killing another Hunter. That in itself would call for a major manhunt and my profile being circulated among every Hunter station, in Solace or otherwise.

  But killing Crassus . . . he was a politically influential senior Hunter. If I were to make a guess, his family has pulled every marker they’ve accrued in a long history of currying favor among the Elders in order to make sure every Hunter who isn’t necessary for Wall Guard duty is out looking for me.

  But we can’t keep running and hiding forever, living off ration pellets, scrounged grubs, and whatever edible greenery we can find, what little of it’s clean in the Scorched Earth. So the cave has been a good respite.

  We’ve even been able to make a fire during the daytime, allowing us to roast Lance’s mountain boar until it’s beautifully tender, seasoned with wild greens and basted in its own fat until it melts in my mouth.

  I might have a tough digestive system, but wild boar meat is unsafe to eat unless it’s fully cooked through. You never know what they’ve been eating, and boar can happily chow down on something that will kill a man in one taste.

  Thankfully, Lance’s hunt was large enough that all four of us have been able to eat our fill each day since then, and while the diet’s a little monotonous, my stomach is pleasantly full as I sit with my back against a comfortable slope of cave wall, using a small piece of ceramic to sharpen my swords while the others catch some post-meal relaxation. Lance is also sharpening his knives while Tym and Brandon laze about, Tym with his head nestled against his pack while Brandon looks pensive as well as grumpy.

  “Hey, Brandon?” Lance asks, drawing his knife along the flat of his sharpening stone. It’s a beauty of a stone, one of Lance’s personal ones, he says, medium-grade on one side while fine enough to turn his blades into razors on the other.

  We’d gone on the run in an electric dune buggy, a higher technology parallel to the way we busted out of Bane, but we’d abandoned it when the traveling got too rough.

  Thankfully, it was a Hunter vehicle, and while it wasn’t fully outfitted for a retrieval mission, which would have given us plenty of weaponry to keep with us, it did have its basic load. So when we walked away, leaving the buggy in a ditch to hide it, we had quite a few more useful tools than what the guys had been able to assemble in the three packs they’d pulled together.

  Including the two ceramic sharpening stones, lifeblood for Lance and me.

  “Yeah?” Brandon says to Lance’s query, his eyes flinty. He’s troubled, I can tell that much, but Lance hasn’t exactly given him any slack either.

  There’s something about Brandon’s struggles that have struck a nerve with Lance. I don’t know if it’s Brandon’s natural abrasiveness sparking with Lance’s natural sarcasm, or maybe it’s that Lance doesn’t quite understand why Brandon should be salty at all. After all, he’d risen from the dead, a trick that hasn’t been pulled off in a very long time.

  Regardless of the reason, I may need to utilize some of our ‘alone time’ for getting him to back off on Brandon. Especially when Lance grins, not his ‘I’m playing with you’ grin, but his sharper one reserved just for Brandon, it seems.

  “You gotten it out yet?”

  “What?”

  “The stick you’ve got shoved up your ass sideways,” Lance says, smirking. “You’ve been sitting over there for the past hour looking like you’re just pissed at the whole world. And we even gave you the nice side of the cave.”

  Oh, shit. I don’t need this. Not when my body’s finally starting to feel good about being out in the Scorched Earth again. I set my stone down, ready to get to my feet if I have to in order to keep them apart, praying I won’t have to.

  “You know, I’ve had just enough—” Brandon says, but before he can complete his comment, a icy scream from the depths of madness rips through the air.

  Or at least, that’s what it sounds like. Part screech, part sub-audible yowl, part insanity put into vocal form, it has the four of us on our feet, argument forgotten, Tym’s nonchalant nap abandoned in the blink of an eye. We’re all armed, even Tym with one of his short-handled, wide-faced sledge hammers in his hand.

  “What the hell was that?” Lance asks, his knives held ready in alternating grips as the cry repeats itself, rolling up and down in volume but somehow never stopping. “Sounded like a werewolf getting surprise butt fucked by a vampire.”

  “Really, Lance?” Tym asks, his eyes narrowing without turning his head away from the sounds outside. “We need to get out of here, find space.”

  “Our packs—”

  “Won’t matter if that’s what I think it is,” Tym says. “Sabertooths.”

  A chill trickles down my spine at the word. I’ve never encountered a sabertooth before, just seen a preserved one and read the incident reports from the Hunter teams that have been lucky enough to encounter a sabertooth and live.

  They’re not the largest predators in the mountains, but sabertooths are perhaps the most dangerous because they are one of the few social animal predators in the Scorched Earth.

  Led by an alpha male, they coordinate their attacks. And with packs often running between five and a dozen, even an experienced Hunter team can find themselves fighting for their lives if they’re caught off guard.

  I understand what Tym means about getting into space. Sabertooths have excellent night vision, and in the shadows of the cave, they’ll have a double advantage. The sabertooth depends on tight, close fighting, while Tym and Brandon both need space to work. Tym’s hammers are especially dangerous, where a single errant swing could trigger a cave-in.r />
  There’s danger in the open as well, though. In the open, we can be surrounded. If the pack is large enough, say ten or more, we could be overwhelmed.

  It’s a risk we’ll have to take.

  “Fine, out and to the left,” I order, thinking of the territory right outside the cave. It’s open, but not too open, with a small clearing just ten yards beyond the entrance of the cave. From there, the trees won’t interrupt us and we’ll have decent sight lines. “Form up. Brandon?”

  Brandon sets his knife down to reach behind his pack and grab his chosen weapon, a seven-foot-long spear tipped with a twisted tool steel tip that gives him plenty of lethality to go along with the combat knife we all carry. It’s not quite as good as the spear and shield he preferred in previous fights, but as he stands, I see he’s more himself than he’s been in days. “Ready.”

  We hurry out into the late afternoon sunlight, but before we’re even halfway to the clearing, a new scream rips through the air and I see the lead sabertooth. Five feet long from tip of black nose to the tawny back of her hind legs, the female saber’s easily over two hundred pounds, broader in shoulder than their rumored progenitors, lions that escaped from zoos after the apocalypse and interbred with other big cat populations.

  Knowing what I do now about my bloodline and that of my companions, though, I suspect another source for the four long, curving teeth that descend from the female’s mouth in twin sets, each four inches long and sharp enough to punch through body armor when driven by a saber’s jaw muscles.

  Tym draws his hammers across his body as I ready my swords, knowing that if one’s here . . . the others won’t be far behind. This female’s too sleek, too healthy to be anything but a member of a hunting pack.

  A deeper, guttural roar echoes through the forest, and in the mountain behind the cave, another sabertooth emerges, and another, and another . . . all of them led by their alpha male, three hundred pounds of sinew and violence. Seven cats, none of them weak in any way at all.