Outliers

by Kate L. Mary

  “It is time,” I shouted over the coughing of my army.

  They moved on my command.

  Asa stuck close to my side as we ran, and it took only a few steps to emerge from the cloud of dust. The air was still gritty, and small bits of dirt and sand crunched between my teeth, but it was now clear enough to make out the wall. Or what used to be the wall.

  The hole Egon had promised was there, and twice as big as he said it would be. Better still, the rest of the wall on this side of the city had been damaged as well. Cracks ran through the previously solid structure, and more boulders crumbled to the ground with each passing moment. I would not be surprised if the whole thing soon crumbled, leaving this side of the city completely exposed.

  “It worked!” Mira called.

  I was too focused on the task ahead of me to respond.

  When we reached the wall, we had to pick our way over the debris. Large chunks of stone teetered under my feet, and dust kicked up under the heavy footsteps of my army, but in less time than I thought possible, I found myself inside the city once again.

  The sun had not yet climbed high enough in the sky to penetrate the walls, and the streets were still dark, cloaked in shadows that were twice as thick thanks to the lack of working streetlights. Egon really had sucked all the power from the city.

  Asa and I ran side-by-side, alert and ready as we moved through the twisting labyrinth of streets. The narrow roads and close buildings made the task of finding everyone difficult, but there were enough of us that I did not doubt we would be successful. I only hoped I was the one who found Lysander—assuming Emori had not already killed him.

  My army broke up, taking different streets as we moved. Mira led one group to the right while Tris went to the left, and Hagan dodged into an alley, followed by a handful of others. Asa and I kept moving as our numbers dwindled, and we were two streets in before we came upon our first obstacle.

  A group of no more than ten Fortis men and women came rushing toward us, armed and ready for battle. They were big and angry, but even with my group broken up the way we were, we outnumbered them three to one.

  Asa was the first to strike, moving past me at a much faster speed than I had thought possible. He had sworn he would back down if his injuries proved to be too much, but watching him raise his sword made all my earlier anxiety and trepidation return.

  He brought his weapon down and it clashed against the sword of the Fortis man in front of him. The clang of metal on metal filled the air and was soon followed by other sounds. Grunts and shuffling feet, shouts from the Fortis as they hurled insults at us.

  I had my own sword up, my sights on a woman twice my size. She wore a sneer that reminded me of an angry animal, and when she swung her weapon toward me, the muscles in her forearms flexed. I was ready, though, my own sword up. Our blades crashed together, and the impact vibrated up my arms. Not letting her size and strength deter me, I ducked away from her next swing, moving behind her. She spun, too, her sword deterring but not stopping my blade. It sliced across her side, slashing through the dark fabric of her clothes and cutting her.

  The woman’s scream sounded more angry than painful, and her eyes mimicked the emotion. She bared her teeth, practically growling as she prepared for her next move. I remained calm, watching and waiting, and saw it when her right shoulder twitched, when her fingers flexed on the hilt of her sword. I knew before she had even taken a step that she was going to swing right.

  I swung at her left at that exact moment, bringing my blade down on her knee. She groaned as she hit the ground, her blade not even coming close to me.

  Blood pooled on the street beneath her injured knee. She tried to get up, screaming in frustration and agony, but made no progress. When she lifted her eyes to mine, she brought her sword up as well, but it was only a defensive move.

  “You can’t win this, Outlier,” she snarled.

  “I already have,” I said, raising my sword over my head.

  The woman was still glaring up at me when I brought it down. The blade sank into her chest, and blood burst from the wound. She threw her head back, screaming, and more sprayed from her lips. Her body convulsed, her eyes closed, and a second later her sword clanged to the ground.

  “Indra!” Asa called from behind me.

  The woman’s body dropped next to her sword when I pulled my blade free.

  I spun to face my husband and found the rest of the Fortis men and women down. All except one.

  The man knelt in front of two of his former people, his nose bloody and a small cut across his forearm, but otherwise unharmed. “Finish me, Asa. You know if you don’t kill me, I’d happily kill you.”

  My husband exhaled and shook his head. “You still don’t understand. I’m not like you. I can’t be like you.”

  “Pussy.” The man spit on the ground at Asa’s feet. “Always have been.”

  My husband said nothing in reply. His shoulders were slumped, and when he lifted his head, it seemed as if it pained him to look at the man.

  He was old, twice Asa’s age, and bigger than most Fortis men. While his shoulders were broad and the muscles in his arms boasted strength, his round gut told me that he had long ago given his life over to drink.

  “Who is this man?” I asked.

  Asa did not look at me. “My father.”

  Father.

  He resembled my husband a great deal. I could imagine that if Asa had given in to the hatred he grew up with, this was how he would look in ten years’ time. Long, knotted hair and a ratty beard, both of which were streaked with gray, and deep lines in his brown skin. His right eye was gone, the skin around it puckered and jagged with scars, but his left eye was as deep brown as Asa’s, and full of hate.

  The man looked me over, frowning, his mouth puckered as if he were considering spitting on me as well. “This the Outlier trash you’ve given everything away for?”

  “This is Indra, my wife,” Asa replied.

  “Wife.” His father snorted and his lip curled. “If your mother was alive she’d cut out her own womb for bringing you into this world.”

  “She’s not alive,” Asa said, “so it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters,” the man said. “It matters ‘cause you betrayed your people. Betrayed who you are.”

  “I wasn’t the one who sent my own child to live in a tower with strangers.”

  “Elora.” The man shook his head. “You were never right in the head, but the day she was born was the end for you. I shoulda killed you the moment you stuck up for her. Ever since then you’ve brought nothing but shame to your family. To your people.”

  “Indra is my people. Elora is my people. The Fortis were nothing but a stain on the earth. That’s why I refused to stand with them.”

  His father shook his head before turning his eye on me. He lifted his chin as if offering me his throat. “Do it so I can be done with this place. I’d rather burn in the underworld than live to see the Outliers rule.”

  I looked toward Asa, but he was staring at the ground and I could not read his expression. He hated this man, I knew he did, and yet I got the feeling he could not stomach the idea of seeing him die.

  “What will you have me do?”

  “He can’t live,” my husband replied. His eyes darted up, to his father, before returning to the stone beneath his feet. “He’s not lying when he says he’ll kill me. The gods know he’s tried enough times.“

  The look on his face made my heart contract, and for the first time in a very long time, I found it difficult to think about shedding the blood of the man in front of me.

  “We can lock him up,” I offered. “There are cells in this city. We both know it.”

  Asa shook his head slowly then exhaled. “No. Let the gods deal with him.”

  When I pulled my knife, he turned away. I paused, waiting, my gaze on his back like I expected him to change his mind and stop me. He did not, though, and after a beat I turned to face my husband’s father.


  “Are you ready to meet your gods?”

  The man lifted his chin higher, his eye burning with hate when he looked at me. It was jarring how much it looked like Asa’s, especially with as hard as it was. I had only seen that expression in my husband’s eyes a few times, when he looked at Lysander, and even then it had not been this hard. Not this dark or hateful. This man was evil. His soul as dark as his eye.

  “With any luck, the gods will be on my side and reward me for the things I’ve done. For the Outlier women I’ve raped, for the Outlier men I’ve beaten.” He lifted his hands and flipped them over so they were palm up. “There’s a lot of blood on these hands.”

  “You are not alone in that,” I said.

  When I took a step closer, Asger, one of the former Fortis men, stepped forward. He grabbed Asa’s father’s arms and held them back, making it impossible for him to fight. Not that he acted like he would. If anything, he was begging for me to end his life.

  I pressed the knife against his throat, but did not move it right away. “And now yours will join the blood of the hundreds of other Fortis men and women I have killed,” I said, and then swiped the blade across his throat in one quick motion.

  When Asger released him, Asa’s father fell forward. He did not put his hands to his throat, did not try to staunch the blood. It flowed like a river and collected in a pool underneath him, filling the cracks in the gray stone. The whole time, he kept his eye focused on me, his expression burning with hate until the moment he collapsed. One last gurgling breath came only a beat later, and then he was gone.

  I turned away and found Asa looking past me, to his now dead father.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  His gaze was still on the man who had tormented him so much. “He was a bastard and he deserved to die for what he did to Elora.”

  “And for what he did to you,” I said.

  Asa’s brown eyes flicked my way. “No. Not me. He beat me, neglected me, even hated me, but I wouldn’t change it. It made me who I am. It made me stronger. It brought me to you.”

  29

  Indra

  We left the bodies in the street and moved on. All around us the sounds of battle echoed through the city and bounced off walls. Metal clanging, shouts of victory and cries of pain. Roan’s and Ontari’s armies were now also in the city, going through the houses one by one in much the same way as they had in the Fortis village. The people living here would die today. There was no stopping it now, and when the sun rose tomorrow, it would be on a new world. What that world would look like was something we did not yet know, but it would be better. Of that, I was sure.

  “Where do we go now?” Asa asked, jogging at my side.

  “Saffron’s house,” I replied. “Lysander will most likely not be there, but I want to be sure. It is on the way to Paizlee’s house, anyway.”

  “What do you plan to do with him?” my husband asked.

  “Make him suffer,” I replied.

  Just like that day two years ago when I got caught in the street, the first grizzard seemed to come out of nowhere. It screeched through the air before swooping down, heading right for us. My steps slowed on instinct while Asa and the other former Fortis guards charged toward the bird. The thing’s massive wingspan barely gave it room to fly between the buildings, but it also made for a huge target, so that when Asger threw his spear, he hit the bird with no problem.

  It screeched again as it careened from its original course, its body slamming into the building at our side. Black feathers, reflecting blues and greens and purples in the early morning light, puffed from its body as it dropped to the ground. Motionless.

  Another screech made me look up. “There are more.”

  “Yes. Dozens, most likely.” Asger pulled his spear from the bird’s body. “Probably drawn here by the scent of blood.”

  Asa stood at my side, panting as he studied the sky above us. “We need to move. Keep your eyes open.”

  I did, running down the street at his side, my eyes half focused on the road and half on the sky above me. Once or twice I saw a shadow followed by the shriek of another bird, and I even spied one soaring away from the city, a body dangling from its beak, but the birds mercifully left us alone.

  It was one of a few times I was relieved to spy Saffron’s house in the distance, and the knowledge that the woman of the house was dead made charging into the mudroom easier.

  Although I did not expect Lysander to be in the house, I kept my knife ready as I moved through the kitchen. Asa and a handful of others followed me in, but most of my group had broken off to raid other homes. As much as I needed to find Lysander and make sure he was dead, I knew they had to focus on our main task if we wanted to win.

  The house I had worked in for so many years was now as silent as a grave. Our footsteps echoed through the empty rooms as we moved, as did our heavy breathing, and the utter stillness of the building made it seem foreign. As if I had never set foot inside it before today.

  “It’s empty,” Asa said when we reached the dining room.

  “Yes.”

  I exhaled but did not turn to leave. Instead, I moved to the study where only a few days ago I had managed to kill Saffron. Blood still stained the carpets where the Fortis guards had died, but like the rest of the house, the room was now empty.

  I stared at the red spot for a moment, mesmerized not only by how big it was, but also by how common the sight had become. I had shed so much blood over the last two years that I barely reacted to the sight of it anymore. Like in the street when I killed the Fortis woman, and after that, Asa’s father. I was no longer fazed when my blade sank into flesh, unmoved by my enemy taking one last, painful breath.

  Asa came up behind me and rested his big hand on my shoulder. “We should keep moving.”

  “I know,” I said, pulling my gaze from the red stain and turning to face him. “I want our life together be filled with more than just death.”

  “It will,” he said, his hand tightening on my shoulder in a comforting squeeze. “One day, our life together will be filled with laughter and happiness, and all this will feel like a different lifetime.”

  “I hope you are right,” I said.

  “But before that can happen,” my husband said, “we need to stop the Sovereign from using their technology against us.”

  “You are right,” I said, moving for the door.

  Back in the streets, the screeching of grizzards could still be heard. Asa stuck close to me as we ran, and I knew he was remembering the day he saved me from one of these very creatures. As a Fortis guard, protecting the city against a grizzard attack had been one of his jobs, and having both him and the other former Fortis men running at my side made me feel more secure.

  Paizlee’s house was only two streets over, but we had to move carefully thanks to the birds flying through the city. I turned a corner once, ready to charge out, but jumped back when a grizzard swooped down and pierced its beak through the head of a Sovereign man trying to flee. The man barely had time to scream before he was lifted into the sky and the bird took off, red robes swirling around the man’s now lifeless body.

  “Maybe the birds will be an asset,” I said.

  “They don’t discriminate,” Asger replied. “They’ll kill anyone they come across, Sovereign, Outlier, or Fortis.”

  “Then we had better hurry,” I replied, running faster.

  Once again, reaching our destination was a relief, and just like when we had arrived at Saffron’s house, we charged inside without hesitation. Unlike the house I used to work in, however, this one did not feel empty.

  I tightened my grip on my sword as we rushed through the kitchen to the other room. There I paused, listening. Above my head something creaked, and I took off toward the stairs, taking them two at a time with Asa and Asger right behind me. When I reached the top, I paused yet again and was rewarded with a thud at the back of the house.

  There was no point in keeping my footsteps light when I m
oved. Whoever was hiding inside this house knew the city was under attack, and they had most likely heard us enter and had run to hide.

  I passed open doors that led into bedrooms three times grander than anything in the wilds. The old furniture gleamed, as did the wood floors. The bright colors of ornamental rugs called out to me, and mirrors shined on the walls. But they were all empty. Only the door to the last room was closed. When I reached it, I did not pause before shoving it open, and I rushed inside just in time to see someone dive behind the bed.

  “Here!” I called, charging forward.

  I ran to the other side of the bed, prepared to find Paizlee cowering in fear, but instead was greeted by the sight of a young but familiar woman.

  Lysander’s wife.

  She was as thin as ever, an anomaly among the Sovereign, and I found myself remembering the dinner party Saffron had thrown before the wedding. How this girl had sat quietly at the table while the other women talked. In a matriarchal city like this, it was unusual to find such a complacent woman, and I almost felt bad for this girl who had been forced to marry a monster like Lysander.

  Still, I had a job to do, and I did not hold back when I reached down and grabbed her arm, jerking her to her feet. “Where is your husband?”

  “Ly-Lysander?” she asked, as if she had more than one husband.

  “Yes!“ I snapped.

  When I tightened my grip on her arm, she gasped in pain.

  “At the government building. With my mother.” She tried to twist from my grasp. “Please. Don’t hurt me. I’m a sympathizer!”

  I froze but did not release her. If she truly was on our side, I would let her live, but this could be a trap. A way to make me spare her life just so she could stab me in the back later.

  “You are a sympathizer?”

  The girl’s head bobbed, her dull, brown hair falling in her face. “Yes. I work with Aralyn.”

  Aralyn.

  I had never met the woman, but the tunnel Mira and I used to escape the city was located in Aralyn’s house.