by Dan Decker
Chapter 23
When the first blast went through the door of the ship, Adar couldn’t help but smile. There is more than one way to slaughter a pig, he thought. He was surprised to see it was dark outside. It had been late afternoon when he’d entered the ship.
He knew he had lost track of time, but now that he thought about it, he realized he'd wasted hours going through the ship. In situations like this, he often found his perception of time became warped.
It wasn't uncommon after a battle to have thought that only a few minutes had passed but then to realize hours had gone by when he checked the position of the sun.
It had taken a lot of time to take control of the ship. He’d also wasted a bunch of time trying to get the door open.
Melyah! It had been hours. It could be near morning for all he knew. Next time, he couldn’t afford to wait until he was desperate to try a blaster.
He approached and pushed on the door, hoping the blast would have done something to loosen it. It held strong. While he listened, he also peered through the hole from a number of different angles, trying to get an idea of what was going on outside.
He didn't see any Hunwei or turncoats. The last ship was also gone as well. He wanted to believe Zecarani was now free of the creatures but didn't let himself get very far down that path in his thoughts. He would assume the enemy was just outside the door until he knew otherwise.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Melynda, her voice a quiet hiss in the silence. “A dozen or more of those and we’ll be able to get out of here.” Her demeanor had changed when Adar had returned with Hucky from the command center. Before she hadn't been scared by the Hunwei, but since he'd come back with Hucky in tow she mentioned several times how much she hated the Hunwei and had feared for her life. She had also told a harrowing story of her and Hucky’s capture.
Adar hadn't believed a word of it. Hucky had opened his mouth, a confused look on his face. She had spoken over him while latching onto his arm.
Growling under his breath, Adar put a finger to his lips. As he did, he realized the blast would have caught more attention than her words.
Why would she change her story now? Adar wondered, doing his best not to stare at Melynda. The time for her to put on an act would have been right after he had found her. Perhaps she had believed the Hunwei were still on the ship and that it would just be a matter of time before they would return to kill Adar.
She must have heard from the others about how the tower had killed the Hunwei and decided—for the moment at least—she needed to focus on making sure people didn’t start to look at her askance.
It was too late, Adar was already on to her game, but for the sake of Hucky, he wasn’t going to do anything about it right away. Even if the kid was aware of what was going on, that was the fault of his mother. Adar would give her a chance to change her mind.
He had thought the Kopal would only be a problem in Rarbon, this was the first hint he'd seen of them elsewhere. He had wanted to believe this would be an isolated occurrence, but he knew better. At the very least, he now needed to be on the lookout for others like her.
Melyah, he thought, it’s bad enough as it is with all the other issues I have to deal with. Now, I have to add this to the pile of things to be mindful of as well.
Adar had never tried to learn what it was that the Kopal believed, he’d just been in the habit of killing them or getting them to give up their belief, the latter usually involving oaths of fealty to him.
He backed away and took several more shots at the door, this time aiming for the top corners, hoping to disable the locking mechanisms. He waited for any type of response from outside, and when nothing happened, he pushed on the door. It didn't move at all.
There were more murmurs, but they died off when he turned to stare at the others. Hucky wasn’t paying attention and was off in the corner of the hold doing something Adar couldn’t identify. He opened his mouth to ask Melynda to call him back but thought better of it when he noticed the scowl she was giving him. Instead, Adar passed the indignant women and went to Hucky himself.
“What you got there?”
Hucky shifted to keep what he held out of Adar’s sight. Despite the kid's effort, Adar recognized the back of one of the small blasters as the kid shuffled backward.
“Give it here.” He held out his hand.
“I don’t have nothing.” Hucky swallowed but didn’t move. “What you waiting for anyway? Get us outta here.”
“I saw the blaster. Where did you find it?” Adar had made sure the lad was empty handed when they’d left the command center, and he’d kept Hucky in front to keep an eye on him for this exact reason.
“It’s mine. I found it.”
Adar knelt so he could look the kid in the eye and held out his hand.
“Why do you need it?” Hucky asked. “You’ve got two on your belt, three over your shoulder, and you’re holding one as well. Can’t you spare me one? Those Hunwei were coming after all of us, you know. What if we get split from you? Who’ll take care of my mother then?”
Adar frowned. If the boy would have been older and not been the son of somebody he suspected, Adar wouldn’t have hesitated to not only let the kid have the blaster, but he would have shown the boy how to use it as well. Given the behavior of the boy's mother, Adar couldn’t allow this to happen.
Footsteps approached from behind, and Adar looked over his shoulder and into Melynda's eyes. Her lips made a thin line across her face, but she swayed as she walked. The grated floor was dirty, but she made it seem as though she crossed a ballroom floor. He might have found her attractive, but he suspected she used her beauty as a weapon.
He had long since learned to not let a woman like that get under his skin.
Adar glowered at her before turning back to Hucky. “Give it here.”
When Hucky didn’t make a move, Adar straightened and shifted so he could keep an eye on both Melynda and Hucky. The last thing he wanted right now was to have to deal with Melynda, but he would if he had to.
“Move away from my son,” Melynda said, her voice so cold that it seemed to lower the temperature in the room several degrees.
“I’m not going anywhere until I have that blaster.” Adar hesitated while she approached Hucky, uncertain about how the other women would react if he stopped her from going to her son.
Their eyes were on Adar. Melynda had seemed to know several of them, and it was possible they might take her side over his.
He had precious little evidence with which to accuse her, much less hold her at the point of a blaster. The others would cry foul if he did. Kura had a frown on her face that he couldn't read. Lars sucked on his fingers and was looking away.
Melynda stooped to her son, a severe look on her face as she held out a hand.
Hucky frowned as he handed the blaster over. When Melynda took it, she paused and considered it, looking as though she was about to claim it as her own.
Adar braced himself, preparing to use either threat or force to get it away from her. He stopped from pointing his blaster at her. She held the blaster towards him without pointing the barrel his direction. “Here take it.”
As Adar slipped it into his pants, he wished he would have felt relief, but he only felt warier. He hadn’t missed the longing look in her eyes as she’d examined the blaster.
If it had been the two of us, she would have taken a shot. He was sure of it.
Glowering as she moved, Melynda took Hucky by the arm and walked him back to the others.
“Would you get on with it?” Helda asked.
Adar didn’t respond as he returned to the door and put enough blasts through the top seam to remove that portion of the door and wall. He groaned as he tried to get the door to move but once again, it held firm.
“Melynda had the right idea,” Helda said, “you’d be halfway through making a hole we could crawl through if you would have been doing that all along.”
Adar had hoped to get
the door of the ship to work again in a way that would minimize the damage, but that wasn’t going to be possible. It was time to give up on that.
If he didn’t get these women out soon, he would have a mutiny on his hands.
Bringing up the blaster, he fired a dozen shots before the blaster stopped working. He tossed it aside and removed one from his shoulder. Once he knew it was safe, he would let the women go out while he returned to the weapons cache and resupplied with working blasters. He continued to fire until there was a hole big enough that even Helda, the largest of any of them, would be able to fit through.
Hucky ran towards the hole once Adar was done. Adar intercepted the boy and pulled him back by the arm. “The metal will be hot.”
“Let me go.” Hucky twisted, attempting to get free, but Adar slung the blaster over his shoulder and held onto the kid with both hands. The women approached, Melynda with a frown on her face that made Adar think she somehow felt he was threatening Hucky’s life. He pushed the kid into her arms and went to the hole.
Leaning forward, he blew on one of the edges. It appeared to be cool until his breath hit it and it glowed red. “It will take awhile for that to cool down. If I had been able to open the door, we would have stepped over the heated portions. Now we’ll have to wait. I don’t want anybody getting a foolish notion of trying to go through before I say you can. We don’t need to risk one of your bodies plugging the hole—”
“You in there?” The voice cut Adar off cold. It was Isak. The tone and command of the voice could be nobody else. “Why don’t you come on out so that I can give your neck a nice slice, you know, the way you did to my brother?”
Melynda gave Adar an angry look that he ignored, as he ushered the group away from the door. Hucky made as if to make a break for it, but Adar grabbed the kid by the arm and pulled him along so that he was out of view.
As Adar brought up his blaster, movement came from behind. He was too late, the last thing he remembered was a sense of surprise that it had been Helda and not Melynda that used his discarded blaster to knock him out.
Chapter 24
Neare came to with a start. It was dark outside, and the fire had died down, only the glow from the embers giving him light to see. Thon’s chest continued to move, despite the lack of proper medical attention. It was surprising the man hadn't long since died.
I wouldn’t be stuck in this mess if I had killed him when I had the chance, Neare thought. The other men and I would be miles away by now. Instead, here he was waiting for Thon to die. And the bleeding fool was taking forever to do it.
It was the only option at this point. He and Erro had spent a considerable amount of time giving Thon additional attention after their efforts to find a local healer had failed. Erro would notice if Thon had any new or enlarged wounds.
Neare closed his eyes, willing himself to go back to the sleep, but they popped open, and he sat up.
Where’s Erro? He was supposed to have awoken me by now. Erro had offered to take the first shift, but Neare had refused and made the boy rest.
Neare had hesitated for a long time before waking his son. It had gotten to the point that Neare was barely able to keep his eyes open anyway and he’d been forced to take the risk of leaving his son on guard duty.
He arose and stepped outside the doorway, hoping that Erro had just gone to relieve himself. They had been lucky so far that the former occupants of the home hadn’t returned, but he didn't know how much longer that would hold.
Erro had wanted to cover the open space where the door had been, but Neare had kept him from doing it because he hadn’t wanted to advertise their presence.
Neare had also moved an overturned table to the fire to keep the flicker of light from reaching those outside.
Erro wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and after several deep breaths, Neare went back in and walked through all the rooms of the home before going out what would have been the doorway of the back. It was now a much larger opening than it should have been. Much of the brick wall was now on the floor, and the door had been broken in two.
Neare stepped gingerly by the light of the moons to avoid disturbing any of the rubble as he moved outside.
A garden had been here before, but it had been trampled. Broken squash and pumpkin littered the ground. He wondered if the Hunwei had intentionally stomped them. A gate was located in a fence at the back of the property, but that had been broken down as well. The privy was off to the side and even though Neare was certain it would be empty, he still swung the door open to make sure.
My boy is going to die and take me with him, Neare thought as he looked into the unoccupied commode.
After crossing carefully back to the house, Neare went to the front room where he found Thon groaning softly. His eyes opened when Neare entered.
“How you feeling?” Neare asked, kneeling down beside the man. Why wouldn’t he just die? Things would be a lot simpler if the man's heart were to just stop now.
“Like the mouse the cat got, only I envy the dead mouse.”
You and me both. “We didn’t have any luck finding you a healer. I’ll try again in the morning.” After their altercation with Adar, they’d stopped back to check on Thon and gone out again, hoping to find a doctor. It had been Erro’s idea. Neare had gone because he’d been wary of Erro slipping away to go chase after Adar.
It turns out my instincts were dead on.
“Erro is gone. Where you awake when he left?”
“No.”
Neare sighed, Erro had been furious with Neare for refusing to engage with Adar. After trying several different ways to convince Erro that Adar wasn’t responsible for what Jorad had done, Neare had given up and tried instead to focus his son towards the task of finding help for Thon.
Neare had tested the idea of leaving the city to bring the others to help get Thon out, but Erro wouldn’t hear of it, insisting instead they needed to find treatment.
Erro had outright accused Neare of just wanting Thon to die.
Neare had hesitated before his denial and that had made Erro all the worse. They hadn’t spoken while they’d trudged through town, asking anybody they saw about a doctor. Their search had ended when a group of Hunwei had sprinted down the road towards them.
Erro and Neare had hidden. Neare had been certain the Hunwei had seen them, but they'd passed on by. After Neare was certain the Hunwei were gone, they’d quickly made their way back to the house.
While they had searched, Neare had made sure to examine any of the dead Hunwei they passed, looking for a blaster. Everyone he found had been destroyed. The weapons looked strong. He’d been surprised most had melted.
Neare wished again that things had gone differently with Adar. Two blasters had been on the ground when they’d left the man.
They had even risked returning, but Neare hadn’t been surprised to find the blasters missing. Erro had sworn and started into a new tirade promising to kill both Adar and Jorad until Neare had told him to quiet down. Even after that, the boy had continued to mumble.
Thon closed his eyes. Neare stood, moving to the door and almost wishing the Hunwei would come crashing through the door. Maybe they would kill Thon for him, and he could finally get out of this forsaken town.
After the better part of an hour had passed with no sign of Erro, Neare became more concerned.
The embers of the fire had almost gone out. Neare had thought of just letting the fire die but realized he couldn’t let that happen.
Unless something fortunate happened, like a bunch of Hunwei trampling through, it was best to make it look like he was doing what he could do to keep Thon alive.
Erro would never forgive him otherwise.
After hesitating, he’d stoked the coals and thrown on more wood until the fire was once again roaring on the hearth.
After doing that, Neare sat on the front stoop of the house until he’d figured that dawn was a few hours away. Erro still hadn’t returned, and the fire had burned down to the
point that it needed to be tended to once again.
When he was finished stoking the fire, he noticed Thon’s eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling. Neare bent over, hoping his friend’s time had finally come. When Thon blinked, it took every bit of resolve Neare had to smile down at the man.
“Water?”
Thon nodded, almost imperceptibly. Neare went to the bucket and pulled out a ladle, making sure it was a little less than half-full. He’d made the mistake of getting too much earlier and had spilled most of it all over Thon’s bandages. The man hardly seemed to notice.
Neare held the ladle to the Thon's quivering lips and slowly poured the liquid into the man’s mouth. He completed the task without spilling anything more than what Thon himself let get away. He’d even been able to minimize that by pouring the water in small sips, allowing most of it to run down Thon’s throat.
When he was done, Neare took a clean rag and daubed off water from Thon’s cheeks.
“Thanks,” Thon said, closing his eyes.
“I’m heading out.” Neare stood. “That foolish boy of mine has got it into that thick head of his to take his frustration out on anybody he can find.”
“Make sure to give Jorad what he gave me.”
Neare nodded in response, but it didn’t matter because Thon hadn’t reopened his eyes. A small snore escaped from his lips.
Neare wanted to take the rag and cover Thon’s mouth until the man stopped breathing. A flash of Bram’s blood covered chest came to mind.
If the gods are merciful, they’ll see that this home is on fire by the time I return. Some of the city was on fire, he had been able to see burning buildings from the porch. I won’t have anything to feel guilty about if he died when I was doing my best to take care of him.
To aid his prayer, Neare threw several more logs on the fire before he walked out the door and into the night.
Merciful gods? I hardly ever thought about them before. Now that I’ve killed, I can’t keep them out of my mind.
