Outlier

by L. J. Hachmeister

  The need to run became an itch that carried all the way down to her bones. She didn’t like Osan’s theory, especially the part about her wielding such intense power.

  “He’s not a dragon,” she said, adding quietly: “And I’m not nasci.”

  “This is important, Sen. There are many secrets out there in the Wastes,” he said, handing her the red, white, and blue flag painted on the nameplate she had noticed earlier. “Things that the favored fear; secrets that may save us shadowless and lead us to a new beginning.”

  Sen looked at the multicolored flag, wondering if it belonged to a denom she didn’t know about. As her fingers rubbed along the brass, she felt inscribed letters, and brought the piece close to her face. She recognized a few of the letters, but not all. L, I, F…B…

  “I found that, and all these metal scraps, near the border, just before the dragon attacked me. If you take on Akoto’s powers, you can command the dragons and lead us farther into the Wastes than we’ve been able to get before.”

  Setting down the nameplate, she shook her head. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Neither one of us is what you want,” she said pushing away the drawing of the dragon, “especially not me.”

  Osan frowned. “You disappoint me, Sen.”

  Jarred by the serious tone of his voice, Sen froze, fearing the electrocution that usually followed such words. “Let me go,” she squeaked.

  “You’re not understanding any of this.”

  Lectures and lessons coursed through her mind as the increasing weight of her father’s expectations crushed down on her shoulders.

  “Sen, you must consider—”

  “No!” she said, kicking the map and running out the tent flap.

  Akoto caught up to her as she ran as fast as she could away from the chief’s tent. Galloping beside her, he snorted and growled, nudging her until she finally took notice. Without slowing, she grabbed onto his fur and swung herself up onto his shoulders. Any other time she would have been impressed with herself, but not now.

  When she looked back, she spotted Sahib and a few other warriors running after them, but their figures grew distant within seconds.

  Sen pressed her entire body into Akoto, even as his uneven pace bumped and flung her in several directions. “You’re not a dragon.”

  As they broke free of the Spires and entered the shrubs and prickly bushes just before the cliffs, Sen pulled back on his hair to make him slow. Something didn’t feel right. An unnatural stillness pervaded the area, as if all of nature held its breath.

  Sen raised her nose, alerted to a strange smell. Smoke tinged the air, but a rancid stench intermingled, turning her stomach.

  Ew—are those ratlings? she thought, spotting a trail of small rodent carcasses. Withered leaves and desiccated limbs of the cacti also littered the ground, leading west into the Dethros.

  The Nezra!

  But as her instincts screamed to run in the opposite direction, she stopped herself.

  Nya.

  Sen froze, no knowing what to do.

  Nya can take care of herself, she reasoned.

  (No,) a deeper voice called. (You must help her.)

  Maybe she didn’t go this way—

  (She ran this direction. She would have found the same trail of death.)

  What could I possibly do to help her? she countered angrily.

  Nya cannot handle the Nezra alone.

  But I can’t do anything!

  Only the sigh of the winds responded, carrying a fresh wave of death to her nose.

  No, I’m not going back there, she thought, reflexively touching her right shoulder, reviving the stinging pain of the spider bites. Yanking Akoto’s fur, she turned him the other way. I can’t.

  But as he turned south, a cry broke through the stillness, shaking vultures and ravenrines from a distant group of trees. As the scavengers cawed and circled in the cloudy skies, the cry came again, this time protracted and frustrated.

  Sen held her breath as a faraway sense of pain struck her, making her reach down to free herself from whatever snared her right leg. When her fingers couldn’t find the phantom trap, she hiked up her pant leg, expecting to find spikes driven into the bone.

  Nothing. Only intact—thought dirty—brown skin.

  But as the pain dissipated, her worries and concerns turned singular: Nya.

  Heart pounding in her chest, she spurred Akoto with her heel, directing him west down the trail of death and decay, back into the heart of the Dethros.

  Chapter 12

  Pain shot through Nya’s ankle where the electro trap bit through her boot and sent white fire up into her leg and hip. Muscles cramping, she fell to the ground, but did her best to raise her head and face her attacker. When she saw his mangled face, and the ghostly look in his eyes, she doubted her own senses.

  He’s dead—

  Instincts corrected her initial judgment. No, alive. But barely.

  Instead of the usual blue glow that emanated from a shock jockey’s skin, purple veins snaked up from the officer’s neck and knotted around his eyes. His white and gold Guild uniform, bloody and singed, appeared as if he had suffered an attack from his own soldiers.

  A cry escaped her lips as he sent another bolt of electricity from his outstretched fingertips through the air and into the trap. Violent spasms tore through her leg and up into her abdomen, and she doubled over on the ground.

  Animalistic fear bade her to claw at the metal trap clamped around her ankle—or sacrifice her foot—but she kept her head down and pretended to go unconscious, even as she heard and smelled her own skin sizzling inside her boot. She couldn’t fight an officer, especially one powerful enough to draw electrical charge from his surroundings instead of relying on the power of a storm.

  Dragging a broken leg on the ground, the officer staggered toward her, saliva and blood gurgling in his throat. Nya let her eyes relax, expanding her focus. Trees surrounded her on all sides, as well as the few scattered bodies of fallen Guild soldiers. Other electro traps, clamped onto the limbs of corpses, and a few other Guild weapons laid within reach. She also had her twin blades, and knives strapped her belt and thighs, but even if she got her hands on them, she’d have only a fraction of a second to act before the officer incapacitated her with another jolt.

  One chance.

  Her fingers twitched as she slowly let the air from her lungs.

  Aim to kill.

  As soon as the dirt from his boot kicked up in her face, she bucked backward and grabbed for her twin blades, intending to cut him in half. But as her hands wrapped around the hilts, he sent another zig-zagging jolt of electricity into the trap around her ankle, incapacitating her with excruciating pain.

  She expected a snarky remark, a quip about her being too slow. After all, if the positions were reversed, she’d throw a dozen or more insults. Instead, the officer hacked and slurped, uttering something so garbled she didn’t think it could be a language as he raised his other hand.

  He’s going to kill me.

  She recognized the stance as the shock jockey stacked his hands to deliver the death blow and burn her heart right out of her chest.

  Still arched back, she yelled through gritted teeth. “Go to hell!”

  But the final strike didn’t come. Instead, the officer stood shaking in front of her, his hands intertwined as his face contorted into the oddest expression.

  Why’s he hesitating?

  A howl ripped through the forest, snagging both of their attention. Despite her protesting muscles, Nya managed to turn her neck as a giant black mass came bounding through the forest.

  Akoto?

  And Sen.

  Nya couldn’t believe her eyes. The wimpy girl, riding atop her monster, charged at the shock jockey.

  “Watch out!” she cried as the officer wheeled around and aimed his hands at the pair.

  Akoto dodged the bolt of blue lightning, but Sen didn’t duck in time, and caught a lesser discharge rig
ht to the chest. Knocked off Akoto, the young girl went flying backwards, landing in a flailing mess in a greyleaf bush.

  The few seconds of distraction allowed Nya to regain some control of her limbs, enough to draw her swords. As another bolt blazed from the officer’s fingers at Akoto, she swung with all her might, coming down on the back of the shock jockey’s legs. A wild branch of blue electricity exploded upward as he tipped back and fell. When he tried to roll over, she finished the job with a hard stab to the chest.

  Nya stayed pressed on top of her swords until she felt no movement underneath, and the last of his breath bubbled out of his lungs in a gush of blood. After determining the kill, she turned her attention to the beast and his charge. Akoto took some damage, but aside from some scorched hair and a superficial burn, he seemed unfazed, and more concerned with his pitiful companion yelping in the bushes.

  “Ridiculous,” Nya muttered as she pried at the jaws of the metal trap biting into her ankle. The leather of her old, patchy boots absorbed most of the damage, but the spikes rubbed up against bone. Nausea crept up her throat, but she swallowed hard and looked for a weakness in the design.

  Those bastards changed the lock mechanism, she realized as she tried to pull down the springs and pin back the jaws. No luck.

  “You okay?”

  The combination of pain and Sen’s annoying, feeble voice made her even angrier. “I’m fine. Get the hell out of here.”

  Sen looked back and forth between Nya’s face and the trap on her ankle, sucking back her lips when she saw the blood pooling around her injury. “Can I help?”

  “No. I said go!”

  The young girl took a step back but didn’t mount her beast and take off as Nya desired.

  Grimacing, Nya thrashed her leg back and forth across the ground. Cold sweat beaded on her brow.

  Gonna pass out.

  “Shy’t,” she cursed in her native tongue.

  The world jerked in and out of view. She tasted something metallic in her mouth, felt the hard ground against her cheek. Taking big breaths filled her lungs, but she couldn’t satisfy her hunger for air.

  “Press your thumbs into the notches and turn your hands opposite directions.”

  Sen’s words sounded distant, muffled, as if she spoken through water. But through the haze of pain and injury, Nya found the notches at the base of the jaws and did as the young girl instructed.

  The trap released. After kicking it off, Nya removed her boot and assessed the injury.

  What’s this? she thought, rubbing off a black ooze from around the bites.

  “They started adding putra extract on the teeth,” Sen said, still keeping her distance. “Helps conduct electricity, and it makes the prisoner sick.”

  “I’m not sick,” she said, shutting her eyes to keep the world from spinning away.

  “It’ll pass in a minute—”

  “I’m fine!” she said, throwing a handful of dirt in Sen’s general direction.

  Akoto growled and moved to the girl’s side.

  Breathe it out, she told herself, fighting against the ominous churning of her stomach. Controlling her breaths, she inhaled through her nose and blew out her mouth, imagining the poison seeping out of her pores. After several breaths, she regained enough of herself to chastise Sen.

  “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be all protected and safe by Osan’s side?”

  Sen averted her eyes and hugged her arms to her chest.

  “Don’t tell me you ran away again,” she laughed.

  A low grumble shook the ground, but Nya didn’t care if she pissed off the beast by hurting Sen’s feelings. Coward.

  But as she tore off strips of her shirt to wrap around her injured ankle, a nagging feeling wore away at her crass assumptions. Sen would have heard her cries, seen flashes of the attack, even at a distance.

  Cowards don’t run toward battle.

  Pausing, she offered what little edge her ego would allow her to give. “At least you’re a decent distraction.”

  “Isn’t that painful?” Sen said as Nya thrust her injured ankle back in the boot.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she muttered, using a nearby tree to steady herself as she tested out the pressure she could apply. Something crunched as she set down her full weight, sending another wave of nausea up her throat.

  It’s fine, she told herself, raising and setting down her foot again. This time no crunch, just throbbing pain, and an unstable feeling in the ankle. After taking a few steps, she determined it could hold her up, but complex movements wouldn’t be guaranteed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To rescue Sho and the others,” Nya said in a huff as she searched the fallen Guild soldiers for anything useful.

  “But you’re hurt and alone—”

  Nya ignored Sen, focusing her attention on more important matters: Why did the Guild attack each other?

  Nudging one of the electro traps on the arm of a dead Guild soldier, she noted the same purple veins streaking up the man’s neck and bunching around his eyes. They look sick.

  She remembered what she observed earlier, when she first saw the officer, and thought he looked dead.

  What kind of disease would do this? she wondered, stooping down to get a better look at another soldier. The man’s skin, anemic and riddled with discolored blood vessels, triggered a flashback to the battle with the Soushin.

  But the Soushin attacked us, not each other. Still, she couldn’t ignore the eerie similarity, or the cold dread sinking into her stomach.

  “Don’t go,” Sen whispered, still clinging to her beast. “Remember what Sulo said?”

  “I don’t care if it’s Lord Vulgis himself—I’m going.”

  “You can’t fight the Nezra!”

  Nya glared at the young girl as she slung two electro traps to her belt. “Why? Because I’m shadowless?”

  With a grunt, she freed another one of the electro traps and flung it at Sen. The girl didn’t move fast enough, and the edge of the setting pin caught her side. “Ow!”

  “Being smarter, faster—that’s all that matters,” Nya said, pointing at the trap. “Guild soldiers use those to concentrate their attacks, but if it’s not ground into your flesh, you can use it to channel away their strikes—even counterattack.”

  Sen bent over at took the device in her hands, looking at it as if she’d never seen the weapon before. “Really?”

  Sho’s arrogant smile flashed through her mind as he ran out against a fully charged strikeforce with only two electro traps in hand. No one else had ever considered using the Guild’s prime weapon against them or been brazen enough to try it in the heat of a losing battle.

  Sho, you wicked fool.

  Her heart warmed at the thought of him, but on its heels came a fresh injection of urgency. “Really. Now get out of my way,” she said, blowing past Sen and Akoto, and heading back toward the wall.

  Blocking out the pain of her injured leg, Nya found a path through the trees, spotting footprints of both man and beast alike.

  Sulo came through here, she thought, recognizing the five-toed bully bear prints. From what she could tell, he made it as far as the lookout tower erected just before the wall. He made it to the Guild post—then what?

  A circle of dead grass and leaf-stripped trees surrounded the tower. Different footprints—ones that dragged in the dirt—headed toward the opened gate. All the Guild soldiers were dead, and Sulo didn’t get through. But somebody else did.

  Nya considered her options. If the Guild soldiers got ambushed, they might not have had time to signal for help. And with the battle happening earlier that morning, the attackers would have had plenty of time to penetrate deep into Guild territory, opening a wide path for her to follow.

  This is perfect, she thought, eyeing the wall. Without the soldiers to charge the giant slabs of conductive rock, the blue glow faded, and her confidence swelled. I hope the death-dealers kill them all!

  A denom war excited her, especi
ally when she thought of the Guild elder who announced the charges against her parents in the public square. Even after five years, she could still remember his austere voice, and the gaudy white gold ceremonial mask that hid his face as he stood up on the pulpit and declared the world council verdict: “Aron and Setalla Calatheas—for abetting an Outlier, you will be held in contempt of the Realm, and sentenced to ten years in the Gorge.”

  She hoped the Nezra found that bastard first.

  As she slipped past the crisscrossing, fifty-foot iron gates splitting the stone, she kept her swords drawn, ears and eyes tuned in to the slightest movements. Finding a winding dirt and stone path, she followed the dragging footprints, noticing the continued mélange of dead animals and foliage along the edges.

  From what little she remembered about the Order of Nezra, the silent masters of death and decay rarely ventured outside their territory in the swamps, and though their elders and leader, Lord Vulgis, used to attend world council gatherings, the death-dealers never squabbled or posed threats to the other denoms.

  And they never demonstrated the end of their powers, she thought, eyeing the putrefied head of a ratling. At least not in such a vulgar way as to leave a trail of decomposing corpses.

  Still, wild stories and grotesque legends circulated amongst the other denoms, generating discomfort at their presence, and fear of their power. A death-dealer hadn’t been elected as world leader in over a hundred years as a result, but Lord Vulgis never protested the injustice.

  Until now, she thought, kicking away a fuzzy rabbix with eyes melted out of its skull.

  A low growl, the sound of a limping gait.

  “Shhhh, Akoto.”

  Nya stopped in place and huffed. “Why are you following me?”

  Silence. Then a hesitant answer. “I’m worried… about my family.”

  “You need to get back to camp,” she said, turning around to face the young girl riding atop her beast. “It’s not safe out here.”