“Wait,” Osan said, slapping the back of his hand against her shoulder.
With a heaving breath, the girl tossed the satchel at Nya’s feet, the contents spilling out into the sand. Nya kicked around the pitiful fare of a few dirt-encrusted roots and some half-eaten leaves.
“We don’t want your garbage—” But as she made to aggress the young girl, the beast roared, setting the entire clan back a few feet.
“For God’s sake, Nya,” Natsugra said, waddling up beside her. The old woman bent down with a groan, and with knobby fingers, collected the meager offering. “Didn’t I teach you anything?”
Osan grabbed one of the roots from Natsugra’s hands and brought it closer to his cloudy eyes. “Ah, vega root. Good medicine.” With a grunt, he looked at the semi-conscious girl, the beast, and then to Nya. “She’s yours.”
Gritting her teeth, it took everything she had not to protest his ridiculous order. The last she wanted, especially now with half of their people sick and rival clans looking to finish them off, was to look after some half-dead, newbie Outlier.
“I want two warriors on guard. The rest of you—get back and help the sick,” Osan said, turning around.
As the rest of the clan returned to their temporary camp, Nya stood outside the circle of light, the semi-conscious girl at her feet, and her beast one swipe away from taking her head clean off.
Nya eyed the beast, not lowering her swords. “Are you gonna play nice?”
The girl mumbled something and rolled onto her back. When she reached up with one trembling arm, the beast responded, coming up to her side and licking her face.
For reasons she couldn’t understand, Nya found herself both rankled and envious of the interaction.
“Listen,” she said, plunging her swords into a mud patch and kneeling besides the girl. “Give me a reason—any reason—and I finish you both off. Got it?”
The girl partially opened her eyes. Nya expected anger or fright, but not the smile that lit up her dirty face. “Thank you.”
Surprised and confused, Nya watched the girl for a moment, trying to understand her strange reaction.
She’s insane, she rationalized.
“And you’re probably just as weird as her, huh?” Nya said, removing the last of the jerky from her belt. The beast sat back on his haunches, watching her hand holding the dried meat with a starving look in his one good eye.
Sighing, Nya broke the small piece in two and tossed him a morsel. “This is a onetime thing, get it? Only ‘cause you may prove useful.”
The beast caught and swallowed the offering in one quick snap of his jaws. Instead of a tail wag, or any sort of thank you, he lowered his head to his front paws, still keeping watch of his charge.
“Hey—don’t fall asleep,” Nya said, slapping the girl on the cheek. The poor kid coughed herself back awake and hugged her injured arm close to her chest.
“What’s your name?”
“…Sen…” the girl choked out.
“Sen? What’s that short for?”
A pained expression crossed the girl’s face, and she turned her head away.
That’s all I need, Nya thought. Another shadowless weakling.
Grabbing Sen by the collar of her shirt, she dragged her back into the torchlight of their temporary camp, the dutiful beast following. She caught sight of Kaden feeding bits of the vega root to his wife, whispering words of encouragement into her ear.
Nya averted her gaze, biting her lip to keep from screaming as others tearfully rejoiced the new medicine. Stupid girl. That root won’t do much. It’s just false hope.
With a clenched jaw she searched through one of Natsugra’s herb sacks, trying to find the cradel poison antidote in the clutter of wash bowls, rags, and crude medical equipment.
“Northern bluebell—small sack,” Natsugra said as she passed by distributing the vega root to the sick.
I knew that, she grumbled to herself as she snatched up the dried indigo flowers, a mortar and pistol, and returned to Sen.
Natsugra joined Nya’s side with one of the torches as she inspected the girl’s wounds. Nearly unconscious, the girl didn’t make a sound, even as Nya poked and prodded the infected spider bites.
“This one’s been through hell,” the medicine woman remarked, planting the torch in the sand next to the girl’s head.
“The worst of it seems to be the spider bites,” Nya said, unimpressed by any of it.
Natsugra patted down the many pockets of her layered robes and dress until she found a spool of cat gut and needle wrapped up in an old silk handkerchief.
“Tend to those lacerations,” she said, motioning to trade the suturing kit for the dried flowers. “I’ll prepare the antidote.”
“No,” Nya said.
The old woman looked up sharply, blue eyes cutting straight through Nya’s defiance. “Nya—”
Nya firmed up her voice, forcing herself to look at the hairy mess of her own terrible mistake. “Let me do this.”
The old woman huffed but took back the kit and shifted down to take care of the deepest cuts on the girl’s legs.
Working in silence, Nya ground up the ingredients for the antidote, overly aware of Natsugra’s watchful eye. Every so often the girl’s beast would grumble and gruff, but made no move to menace their action.
“Are you done yet?” Natsugra asked as Nya stared at the blue paste in the wooden bowl.
She couldn’t remember if she needed to add anything else, but the medicine woman’s urgency made her rush to answer. “Yes.”
“No!”
Natsugra snatched the bowl out of her hands and shooed her away with a wave of her hand. “You could slay a dragon,” she said, taking pinches of other herbs out of the pockets of her dress, “but you’re too impatient to see what’s right in front of you.”
“This is ridiculous,” she said, standing up and kicking the sand.
As she stormed off, she heard Natsugra’s remark to the girl’s beast: “I tried to teach her.”
Nya took to the cover of a red juniper tree a good distance from the edge of their camp. Refusing to look up at the ethereal night sky, she turned her gaze to the western edge of the Realm, the glowing blue walls a reminder of all that was denied to her.
“If you’re still alive, Sho…” she said through gritted teeth as she removed the hunting knife from her belt. With anger in her heart and an unnamable hunger in her veins, she whispered: “Come back to me.”
Chapter 5
Sen heard her mother’s voice far off in the distance:
“You have something special… something I haven’t seen in a long time…”
Confusing images and sounds followed. A flash of a bearded woman, the sound of hoof beats. Reddish-gray rocks piled high, all the way to the stars. Someone screamed; more cries followed, as well as the shriek of something hideous and inhuman. Hands and feet appeared all around her in a frenzied commotion.
Where am I?
Raising her head felt impossible, like lifting a boulder. The smell of blood and sweat filled her nose, making her gag.
“Akoto…” she mumbled through numb lips.
Somewhere close by he roared, and the sound of splintering teeth and crunching bones followed.
What’s happening?
Terrified, she forced her eyes open, only to squeeze them back shut.
Not real not real not real—
Dozens of men and women, robbed of all the color from their skin, attacked with charred limbs and bloodied mouths. Painted warriors fought off the hordes with spear, arrow, and sword, but even a direct hit to the heart didn’t seem to stop their nightmarish attack.
Sen screamed as a blackened hand wrapped around her leg and yanked her out from the protection of the circle of warriors.
“Akoto!” she cried, digging her hands into the sand, trying to find purchase.
Another hand slapped down on her back. Nails raked down her spine. Bucking wildly, she freed herself enough to flip arou
nd. A ghostly woman loomed over her, vacant-eyed and panting like a feral dog.
Sen froze.
“Fight back!” someone shouted.
In the corner of her eye, Sen saw a woman with dark braided hair and a sword in each hand taking down the attackers in droves.
“Fight back,” she repeated as she fended off two human-like creatures coming at her on all fours.
Strings of cold saliva hit her face from the woman’s open mouth. Paralyzed by fear, Sen looked past her rotting teeth and down her gaping throat, unable to breath, her heart pounding its way out of her chest.
No no no—please—help me—
Then she heard it—or at least she thought she did. Somehow, amidst the pandemonium of screams and guttural cries, the raw thudding of sword against flesh, she discerned a whisper, a desperate plea from a place beyond the dying woman’s lips.
“Save me…”
Shocked by the voice, Sen broke from her fear, her hand drawn to the woman’s pale face by a need she felt down in the marrow of her bones.
A streak of silver. Warm wetness splashing against her face.
“Get up!”
Rough hands grabbed her by the armpits and got her to her feet. Sen could barely process her beheaded attacker, or the young warrior forcing her toward the others regrouping by the tallest rock spires.
“Stay under cover,” she said, shoving Sen near a juniper tree where other clan members, sickened and injured, huddled together under the twisted branches.
Sen brought her knees to her chest, afraid and bewildered by the raging conflict. Got to get out of here—
“Don’t worry,” one of the injured women said, touching Sen’s shoulder and then pointing out to the warrior deftly cutting her way through a wave of shrieking attackers. “Nya will save us.”
As dark as it was, Sen could follow each slash and stab as moonlight coruscated off the silver blades. In all her life she had never seen such savage grace. Every denom in the Realm relied on their gifts, not the vulgar wielding of an antiquated weapon.
Warriors hooted and hollered, rallying at Nya’s ferocity. Dodging bites and clawed attacks, she flipped over the last wailing pale one and beheaded him in one clean stroke.
As the clan cheered for their victory, Sen struggled to her feet in a panic.
“Akoto,” she cried, stumbling over felled attackers and broken weapons. “Akoto!”
A weak grumble answered, followed by a whine. Squinting, Sen tried to discern the many fallen bodies in the dark, picking her way through the jumbled mess until she spotted the giant ball of black fur near one of the spires. At least ten of the pale ones lay around him, their faces covered in a mish-mash of black fur and blood.
“Akoto… no…”
Fearing the worst, she approached him, shaking and holding her breath.
Please be okay.
When she touched his back, she felt the wet patches of hair, but no movement.
“Hey, kid—get back here!” someone shouted.
Forgetting everything and everyone else, she spread her arms and buried her face in his coarse fur. “Stay with me.”
You’re all I have left.
A light formed, somewhere off in the distance, separate from the pitch black she saw behind closed eyelids. She watched in disbelief as it grew in synchronicity with the beat of her heart until she could tolerate the brightness no longer, and opened her eyes.
What was that?
“Akoto?”
The beast stirred, bumping her away with his shoulders as he rallied to his feet. With tears streaming down her face she hugged his arm, not letting go until he licked her face hard enough to make her fall backwards into the sand.
“I told you to stay under cover.”
The stern voice jarred her from her moment of joy. Sen looked over her shoulder, spotting Nya approaching her, eyebrows pinched together in a scowl.
“But I thought he…?” Eyeing the beast, the warrior woman stopped abruptly, keeping a good distance between herself and Sen’s friend. “Huh. Didn’t think he made it.”
“No, he’s okay,” Sen said, stroking the fur on his arm as he licked his fresh wounds.
Nya reverted right back to her aggravations. “If I tell you to do something, you do it. Unless you want to try surviving out here on your own.”
As the remaining clan members spread out with lighted torches, searching the battlefield for anything or anyone to salvage, Sen finally got a good look at the young woman. Imposing scars, war-paint and tattoos covered her exposed skin, and she sported a partially shaved head and braids that wrapped up into a high ponytail. Even though she appeared just above average height, she had a muscular frame, and carried herself with authority.
She’s just a teenager, Sen thought. Even so, her initial impression didn’t last long. Nya’s eyes, rimmed with dark makeup, didn’t gaze at her with the youthful exuberance Sen expected from someone her age. There was a hardness there, a cold determination forged in the fires of survival and pain, something which Sen recognized, but could not understand.
Just as Sen looked her over, Nya returned her gaze in a way that made Sen nervous.
She sees right through me—
She knows I’m not worth anything.
After all, she could not handle a blade, and she did not know anything about survival in the outlands.
Sen lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Look over the dead,” Nya said, her tone bereft of pity. “Take whatever’s useful.”
“W-what happened? Who attacked?”
A pause. Sen braved looking up. Nya knelt next to one of the pale ones, inspecting the blackened limbs and distorted face. Rolling over another one of the bodies, she pointed out a series of animal tattoos descending across the blanched torso.
“These are Soushin—another clan of Outliers. We’ve had some problems with them, but they’ve never waged a full-out attack on us like this.”
“They look sick,” Sen said, still clinging with one hand to Akoto as Nya shoved over another body.
Nya didn’t answer. At least not immediately. Frowning, she inspected the charred fingers of a pale one much too small to be an adult.
That’s a child! Sen realized. Why would a kid be part of an assault?
It didn’t make sense to her, and by the way Nya scoured the young attacker’s body, she gathered it didn’t add up to her either.
“There’s a lot of sickness going ‘round right now.” Nya stood up and put her hands on her hips. “…but this isn’t right.”
“Wait,” Sen said, following Nya as she made her way back to the gathering point near one of the spires. “What’s wrong?”
Nya didn’t answer, her gaze fixed on the older man with dark skin and a bushy white beard. Leaning heavily on a walking stick, the decorated elder appeared in deep conversation with a woman about his age dressed in layered robes. The woman motioned to the sick, still huddled under the juniper tree, a grave look in her eyes.
Is that…? Sen blinked her eyes several times, thinking her mind to be playing tricks in the moonlight. Does that old woman have a beard?
“Chief,” Nya said, approaching the two elders with a rush in her step. When they turned their attention to her, she placed her hand over her heart and bowed. “Your council, please.”
The old man nodded, placing his hand on her shoulder. He looked once at Sen, and the large beast that followed behind her, before indicating to the bearded woman to give them privacy.
Confused, and closer to tears than she realized, Sen didn’t argue when the bearded woman steered her away to allow the old man and Nya their conversation.
“So, you are Sen,” the bearded woman said, looking her up and down with one eyebrow lifted. “Not much of a fighter, are you?”
Heat rushed to her cheeks, coloring them bright red. Thankfully, the old woman didn’t wait for her to acknowledge her battle weakness.
“And what is this great beast you command?”
�
��I don’t command him,” Sen said, backing up into Akoto and staying pressed against his body. “He is my friend, Akoto.”
“A Shifter?”
Sen thought about it before answering. Shifters couldn’t stay in one form—including their original human cast—for as long as she’d been with Akoto. “No.”
“What is he? Where is he from?”
All the questions made her uncomfortable. Still tending to his wounds, Akoto didn’t seem to care one way or the other, as she fielded the bearded woman’s curiosities.
Sen shrugged.
“Well then how did you come to be ‘friends?’”
The question put a smile on her face. “We helped each other out in the Dethros.”
With a sigh, the old woman gave up on digging for any more information. “My name is Natsugra. I am the medicine woman for the Chakoa.”
The clan name sounded familiar. Something I overheard my father say...
His dour face appeared in the back of her mind: “Shadowless savages. I will wipe out the Chakoa myself!”
Cringing, she averted her eyes to avoid showing any kind of recognition.
“You seem to be doing well enough now,” Natsugra said, reverting her attention to the rest of the clan. “Make yourself useful.”
Before Sen could respond, the medicine woman returned to her station, tending to the sick and those injured in the battle under the juniper tree. Still unsure of herself or her circumstances, Sen watched from a distance, observing Nya and the clan chief’s heated dialogue between the spires. Those who had salvaged from the battlefield returned to help, setting up fires and putting up tents.
“I remember the bearded lady’s face from my dreams. I think she saved me,” Sen whispered to Akoto. As Nya repeatedly pointed to the west, she recalled another memory. “Give me a reason—any reason—and I finish you both off. Got it?”
(I’m not wanted.)
The realization circulated through her mind, dredging up all the reasons for running away in the first place.
(They’ll never accept me—)
(They’d be better off if I never even existed.)
A shiver ran through her body, and she pulled at the remnants of her clothing to quell the sudden chill.
Outlier Page 4
