by J. Thorn
“Yes.”
“Of course,” Kolton continued. “The Council might need to declare a leader should one die in battle…or on a raid.”
Hado shook her head. “I was not—”
“No, child. You were not.” Kolton leaned in, speaking through the slit in her mask. “Whether I die or not is of no concern to you. There are warriors in our clan who believe they are ready to challenge me for the Red Mask. And soon.”
Kolton waited for three warriors to walk past them, the last of those in the raiding party. “This tribe is not ready to continue without my leadership.”
Hado nodded and followed Kolton and the rest of the raiding party into the ruins, uncertain as to whether the leader had made a statement or proposed a question.
***
The screams always made her shake. Some mothers would fight, while others cried. Either way, the babies would be taken by Venganza and the survivors would be left to clean up the devastation.
A man wearing one of the Los Muertos vests had come at Hado with a spear. She saw him emerge from the tree line bordering the old park between Euclid and East 110th Street. He sprinted, but Hado saw him as if he were running in slow motion. She noted the snarl on his face and the tears in his eyes—she felt the hatred in his heart. Hado had not wanted to kill the man, but she knew it would be an inevitability. He would not surrender to her.
“You evil bastards!” screamed the man. “Go to Hell!”
She turned and thrust a foot out, tripping the man and sending his spear flying into the air. Hado sensed three other Los Muertos men in hiding, none of them brave enough to come at her like this man had, but they stood ready with weapons, nonetheless. Like the mystic powers commanded by a Water Whisperer, Hado had begun to feel the presence of a threat before her senses could detect them.
The man she had tripped rolled over, and Hado knew it wouldn’t take much to kill him. He had yellow eyes and sores in his mouth, his skin sagging. The man balled his fists, and when he sneered, she could see the black gaps where his teeth used to be.
“You know how we rule,” said Hado even though she knew she was not supposed to speak. But this man would die, and he would not reveal her hidden gender to other Los Muertos. “Unsanctioned births result in raids.”
“You are a woman,” he said, his eyes wide and flickering back and forth. “A woman. How could you do this to children?”
Two men knocked down a pile of broken, wooden furniture that had been used to block the main entrance to a building. They panicked and ran, hoping to remain unfound during the raid, even though their fallen friend would die at their feet.
Hado saw the movement from the corner of her eye and grabbed an arrow from her quiver. In one motion, she notched the arrow, drew it back, and let it fly. A thump followed a whooshing sound as the sharp arrowhead split the air and then embedded itself into the back of one man. He groaned and fell to the ground. Hado spun and repeated the movement, dropping the other guy in the same manner. The man she had tripped and then spoken to scrambled to the base of an iron fence bordering the park, cowering.
“Don’t kill me. Please.”
Hado drew a dagger from beneath her cloak. The blade gleamed in the light of her torch.
“You know that I must,” she said.
“You’re speaking to them?” Kolton asked. The Venganza leader exited the building, her ax dripping with blood.
“Yes,” she said to Kolton. “I don’t know why I did that, but I killed the others, and I will kill this one as well.”
“You cannot speak on the raids. You know this.”
She nodded. She had disobeyed. Hado knew there would be consequences.
The flurry of activity that came next happened so fast that the man on the ground did not have time to scream before he died.
One of the men who Hado had shot with an arrow stood, holding a long spear in his hand. The tip of it was only five feet from Kolton’s head. He lunged forward with the last of his mortal energy. Hado had an arrow notched before Kolton knew what was happening, and Hado fired it. The arrow blew back the horse hair on the top of the red mask as it shot past Kolton’s head and pierced the right eye of the man who had attacked Venganza’s leader. Hado then dropped to one knee, plunging the tip of her dagger into the temple of the man on the ground.
Kolton took a step toward Hado. “This was the last Los Muertos camp in this part of the old city. The raid is over. I guess The Council won’t need to find my replacement just yet.”
Hado looked down at the lifeless bodies and cursed her own sharpened reflexes and deadly aim.
***
Hado used Sunji to issue the official challenge to Kolton. She had bypassed the customary waiting period, and Kolton had accepted. Hado had proposed the fight take place at dawn in the center of the village they had eradicated the night before. It would be a spectacle for the survivors still hiding, and for the women of Venganza.
“So soon?”
She looked at Kolton, averting the woman’s long gaze. “No need to wait. We both knew this was inevitable.”
Sunji stood off to the side with several of Kolton’s most loyal and ferocious warriors. The women held spears loosely at their sides, honoring the unspoken agreement to let the challenge take place. The clan’s leader would be the warrior alive at the end of the fight.
Hado stepped into the circle, and the Venganza warriors spread out, surrounding her and Kolton.
“I honor and respect you,” said Hado. “And I challenge you for the Red Mask.”
Kolton removed it from her face and handed it to the warrior closest to her who set it upon the broken remains of a cinder-block wall.
“I accept.”
Hado bowed and gave her mentor the customary first blow. But visions of her aunt bleeding out from the knife in Kolton’s hand propelled Hado forward in a cyclonic, focused attack. She struck Kolton across the face with an open hand, the Venganza leader wincing slightly before returning the blow to Hado’s nose. Hado staggered backward, putting a hand on her face and failing to stop the blood flowing from her right nostril.
“I think your decision to kill the Water Whisperer has compromised the clan.”
Kolton shook her head. “We are beyond words, my child. Come. Fight.”
She waved Hado toward her. Sunji made a noise in her throat as if clearing the congestion from spring pollen. Hado looked up and smiled with bloodstained teeth.
Kolton leaped, using one leg to sweep Hado’s feet out from beneath her. Hado fell on her hip, smacking her elbow off of a hard chunk of shale embedded in the dirt. Kolton came again, driving her heel down into Hado’s abdomen.
She would not die here in the dirt, with no hope for Venganza or for the future. Kolton would need to kill her or risk losing all control of the clan.
Hado rolled over and jumped up, both hands cutting the air with precise movements she had practiced daily for years—most of which took place under the tutelage of her mentor whom she now battled. She came at Kolton, landing a chop on the woman’s shoulder that shattered her collarbone and brought Kolton to her knees. Hado came at the woman again, this time driving the heel of her right hand into Kolton’s mouth, shattering teeth and splitting both lips open.
The warriors surrounding the melee groaned, taking a step closer, moving the border of the ring tighter. Hado held up one hand, forcing them to pause.
“Respect your leader. Do not close the circle in anticipation of victory. I do not assume it, and neither should you.”
But she did. Hado knew Kolton was finished, and how she ended the leader’s life would be critical to how she started her reign. Hado made sure to respect Kolton’s strength, to keep the fight circle where it had started.
Kolton stood, but her body slouched to one side, her broken collarbone not allowing her to stand up straight. She lifted her left fist but immediately dropped it from the surge of pain that had radiated from the bone snapped by Hado’s hand.
Hado caught Sunji’s
eye and nodded. Her friend nodded back.
She walked to the fire pit on the edge of the fight circle and grabbed a smooth, round stone the size of a large man’s fist. Hado turned and stood before Kolton, who had now dropped to her knees with her head held high.
“You are proud, and you have trained me to lead. I will do so with dignity and strength.”
“Then do what you are destined to do,” said Kolton. “Take the Red Mask.”
Hado brought the stone down onto the top of Kolton’s skull, splitting her cranial cavity. She fell into the dirt, blood pouring from her head. Hado knelt down and struck Kolton several more times until nothing was left on her shoulders but a bloody pulp.
She stood and tossed the bloodstained rock into the fire pit. Sunji grabbed the Red Mask and handed it to Hado, who strapped it on her face.
“I am Venganza,” said Hado as the other warriors dropped to one knee and bowed before their new leader.
***
She kissed the charm and placed it back on her chest, beneath the vest that Sunji had cleaned for her. The blood came off in the cold water of the swollen creek. Hado would need a few days to recover from her wounds, and then Venganza would give her the honor of an official coronation ceremony.
Hado grimaced, not from the pain in her hip or her nose, but from the total lack of satisfaction she felt from killing Kolton. The woman had murdered her aunt, the only connection Hado had left to the old world. And then Kolton had executed the Water Whisperer, who, regardless of how accurate he had been, was the best tool they had to find fresh water sources. Despite that, Hado also felt the sting of defeating her seemingly god-like mentor, the woman who had hardened her in this new world and had taught her how to survive.
“More soup?”
Hado waved a hand at Sunji. “Maybe later.”
“The warriors have been asking about tomorrow night. They want to know if—”
“Yes,” said Hado. “Plan the coronation ceremony and the banquet. That is what new leaders do, right?”
“Can I ask you something?” said Sunji.
Hado waited, feeling as though it was a question that didn’t need to be answered.
“The survivors left in the ruins…”
“We must obey The Council,” said Hado. “We must ensure our future. That aim is no different now than it was when Kolton led Venganza. We continue punishing those who disobey our laws.”
Sunji smiled and glanced at the Red Mask on the wall. Hado half-expected Kolton to return to life and reclaim it.
“Will you walk with me?”
“Yes,” Sunji said. “Of course.”
Hado struggled to get to the door until Sunji handed her a staff. The new leader of Venganza grimaced, remembering the old witch who had used this as a crutch for years before dying the previous winter. The staff made Hado feel weak and feeble.
She climbed the stairs with Sunji behind her. “I want to sit in silence. Not really in the mood to talk now.”
“That’s fine,” Sunji said.
The door opened onto the roof. Hado hobbled to the wall and peered over the edge while Sunji sat next to her. A few fires dotted the darkening landscape, those of Venganza—not the survivors. The blood moon had faded, leaving a sliver of white bone hanging on the night’s throat. The first stars emerged, glimmering over the lake, and the water seemed as still and as flat as the old highways that stretched off into unknown ruins.
Hado gazed to the west where she spotted movement on the horizon. She leaned forward to get a better look at what had appeared this dark night, and Sunji thrust out an arm to prevent her from tumbling off the top of the building. A single craft moved slowly to the west, as if chasing a dying sun.
Kolton had not been able to identify or capture this woman, but Hado would—that she promised herself. If the stranger could sail and survive the Great Lake, so could Venganza. Changing the beliefs of her warriors would be more difficult than slaying her guide and mentor. And that battle, she had barely won.
In the ruins, death always seemed to move in a circle, eventually bringing everyone to rest in the cold dirt.
###
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank you, dear reader, for caring enough about Hado to dig into her past.
Other works from J. Thorn
Browse the entire J. Thorn catalog at http://jthorn.net/books/.
About the Author
Healed by the written word
Want a story that's rooted in a fundamental aspect of being human?
I believe reading dark fiction can be healing. My overriding mission is to connect with you through my art, and I hope to inspire you to do the same. I’m a word architect and driven visionary. I’m obsessed with heavy metal, horror films and technology. And I admire strong people who are not afraid to speak their mind.
I grew up in an Irish Catholic, working class family and was the first to go to college. I didn't have expensive toys, so I used my own imagination for entertainment. And then I abused alcohol for entertainment. I spent the first thirty years of my life convincing myself I wasn’t an addict and the last ten worrying about all the potential threats the substances hid from me.
Anxiety and depression are always hiding in the corner, waiting to jump me when I start to feel happiness.
I had to break through family programming and accept the role of the black sheep. In my 30s I started writing horror and formed a heavy metal band while my family rolled their eyes, sighed and waited for the “phase” to end.
I spent years paralyzing myself with self-loathing and criticism, keeping my creativity smothered and hidden from the rest of the world. I worked a job I hated because that’s what Irish Catholic fathers do. They don’t express themselves, they pay the damn mortgage. I may have left my guilt and faith behind long ago, but the scars remain.
My creativity is my release, my therapy and my place to work through it all. I haven't had a drink in a long time, but the anxiety and depression are always lurking. Writing novels and songs keeps it at bay. I scream over anxiety with my microphone and I turn my guitar up loud enough to drown out the whispers of self-doubt.
I hope to leave a legacy of art that will continue to entertain and enrich lives long after I'm gone. I want others to see that you don’t have to conform to the mainstream to be fulfilled.
Don’t be afraid of the dark. Embrace it.
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