by K. F. Breene
At that the Captain looked down at him, worry and grief in his eyes. When those glowing blue orbs met his, he saw a nod through the haze, then the Captain was looking straight ahead again.
“You see, filthy rat,” Shanti said from somewhere close, “I am unimpressed with your brand of power, though I think I will use it on the Being Supreme before I kill him.”
“You won’t see that day,” Betty spat.
“No? Hmmm. Cayan, you might disengage. This is about to get…nasty.”
“I’m a part of this, mesasha. I will continue to be.”
“You’ll think less of me, but since we don’t have time to argue, so be it.”
The room stilled into a pregnant silence. Sanders felt the stress of those around him as if it was a palpable thing, but no one moved. No one walked forward to grab Betty or even tended to the wounded, including Shanti.
A sharp intake of breath had Sanders trying to look in Betty’s direction. A harsh groan, then shallow breaths, panting like a dog in the sun. The foreign woman was starting her revenge.
“No screams, yet, huh Sturgane? You see, I learned your name. I wanted to know who killed my future. The whole way here I had a feeling I would see you—strange, isn’t it? If I believed in Fate, I would think this meeting was destined. Instead, I see it for what it is—you were always the most ambitious of the Inkna when it came to scouring for new wealth. Of course I would find you chasing the wealthy nations. But enough about that now; you must scream for me or Sanders will never be happy. How about this?”
The Captain shifted his stance, his palm spread along the back of her neck. A high-pitched keening crowded the space, chasing away all silence. Nails scrabbled on stone, clawing, screeching where they scraped.
“He just tore two of his nails off on the floor,” someone said in a terrified whisper. He looked like a swirling mockup of Tobias hovering over Sanders’ head. Good fighter. Great in a pinch. Wise choice to bring along.
“You have to scream, filthy rat, otherwise I won’t have done Sanders justice,” Shanti said with fierce tears in her voice. “I owe him my life. My destiny. You will pay him with yours. Let’s increase the pressure.”
“How did you escape?” Sturgane shrieked. “They said you were dead!”
“No, no. I prayed for death, oh yes I did. You and your filthy brethren stole my life from me. But alas, I am not dead. Some days that is the biggest travesty of all. No, I am not dead,” she said softly. “But you are about to be.”
“He will claim you and rape you over and over until you beg for death! You will bear his children in chains like the dog you are!” Sturgane screamed.
The Captain shifted again, his body leaning farther over Shanti. Suddenly the air was solid, everyone in the dungeon struggling to breath, backing to the walls, looking for the exit.
“Cayan, no. He is mine,” Shanti said urgently. “I have to finish this. I have to finish what he started. For Romie. For Sanders.”
“There are…” Sturgane’s voice cut off in a whine.
“Two of us, yes,” Shanti answered, her attention never far from Betty’s face. “It seems I found another one before the Being Supreme could. It will be a wonderful joke when he finds out, don’t you think?”
“Impossible.”
“Improbable, not impossible, as you see.”
“Two swine that will be chained and tortured! You are nothing!”
“Well, Sanders, your friend is very rude,” Shanti said simply. “No more stalling.”
“Their eyes are glowing,” someone uttered in a hushed whisper.
The fast breathing was back. Then the keening, animalistic sound. Primal. Agonized.
“No, no,” Shanti said in a hush. Her voice quivered. “You are just like the little mouse, trying to end your own life. I can’t let you do that.”
Clothes rustled in the darkness. Sanders struggled to hear, needing this revenge even if administered by another. Betty started to howl, out of control. Deep, wells of pain, both emotional and physical, saturated his voice, split his vocal chords.
“I hate your Gift.” It sounded like Shanti was fully crying now, her own voice laced with life-consuming pain long endured. “But I can see how effective it is. You must have no soul to use it.”
“Naaahhhh! Hhhaaaaaaa! Aaaahhhhhh!” It was a collection of wails. Eternal suffering. Anguish beyond reckoning. Sanders almost felt guilty Betty had to endure it.
Almost, but not quite.
Everyone was shifting now, uncomfortable, scared even. The Captain huddled closer, nearly smothering the sobbing foreign girl with his body. Clothes ripped, hands slapped skin, Betty rolled and stamped his body. Then screaming. Wild, shrill shrieks, echoing off the walls and drowning out all thought.
Men were turning away. One vomited. Still Betty screamed. Louder and louder, his voice nothing but a guttural scraping. His vocal chords sounded like they had been burned away. His back was arching as he lay, his stomach extended, his legs twisting in on themselves.
Finally the Captain said softly, “Enough, mesasha. Let him die.”
“Why, when I cannot?” Shanti sobbed.
But the sound cut off as if ripped away. The woman wavered.
“What did you do to him?” Tobias said in a fearful whisper.
“Punished him for killing my love and helping destroy everything in the world I hold dear. Sanders, please know that your suffering, while longer in duration, was nothing compared to his. I used his Gift on him along with the pain. It is…an effective way to torture. A soul-killing way to torture. For me. My debt to you has been fulfilled. We are even.”
“That’s all well and good, but I still feel like shit,” Sanders rasped. It was true. Why lie?
He was loaded onto a stretcher as a cooling mist enveloped his mind. The voice of the foreigner, soft and feminine, whispered in the din, “Sleep, Sanders, I will help heal you. Not everything I learned from these nasty rats was awful.”
Sanders barely held onto consciousness as his stretcher carriers followed the Captain out of the dungeon. The Captain carried a limp Shanti, who, shortly after putting him in a wonderful, numbing kind of fog, sank against the disgusting stone wall and hung her head, grief etched in every line on her face. Whatever Betty had showed her had worked its way deep into her being and eaten away at her core.
When the Captain informed her it was time to go, she didn’t even look up. Apparently she wasn’t even planning to bother continuing on. Despite all that Sanders had been through, somehow that knowledge was the worst. Her quitting seemed the end of all things. Even though he couldn’t say why, some part of him registered that for her to give up would mean great peril to them all.
The Captain bent and scooped Shanti up easily, waving everyone away, including Marc, who was trying to look after her shoulder where Betty had pierced her with a throwing knife. Good thing the weasel was a terrible shot.
It seemed the Captain had developed some kind of kindred spirit with her, and from what Tobias had told Sanders when the tight-lipped Sterling wasn’t hovering close by, whatever the foreign girl could do, the Captain could do, too, and they could do it better when they were together.
Wasn’t that some shit. Sanders felt bad for the Captain. She would be a helluva woman to have to share a kindred spirit with. Though, he had to admit, a good one to have in your corner.
Chapter 47
The day after the battle Marc sat beside the woman who was responsible for his success thus far. She had believed in him when everyone else had given up. She had given him patience when others showed him frustration. She had literally kicked him in the butt when others had walked away. There was just something about her to look up to. She always had a reason for what she did, and she knew how to work with each guy, no matter how different, to bring out the best in him. Leilius was living proof. And now Leilius was a celebrity. He couldn’t walk two steps without someone giving him a nod, or a pat on the back, or a job well done. On the way there, those same guy
s had shunned, or ignored, or sneered at the younger soldier.
“C’mon My’pol, you need to eat.” Marc urged the bowl of gruel into Shanti’s hands. It had always been a running joke, the things Leilius came up with when his brain was short circuiting, thinking about something else. They had always loved that she didn’t care what she was called. It set her apart. It made everything seem lighter, more fun and less tedious. She usually smiled when they used the titles, in eyes if not in mouth, but now it didn’t help.
“I’m okay, Marc. Thank you. And job well done. I hear you are excelling.”
“Don’t worry about me. You need to eat. I made this special for you. Just one bowl. Please.” The gruel was full of nutrients, remedial herbs, electrolytes, and immunity building properties. The best part was that it tasted similar to broth. One bowl went a long way. So far the three sick men, including Commander Sanders, were doing excellently on it.
“I’m not hungry, Marc, but I thank you. Why don’t you leave it beside me and I’ll eat in a while.”
Shanti was sitting at the base of a tree, her body resting against the rough bark, nearly limp. Her eyes were lackluster and her speech came out nearly monotone. She was agonized. Anyone could see it. Whatever she had found inside the mind of that guy in the white shirt was eating away at her, and she wasn’t doing anything to revive herself. She was giving up.
Marc looked around for help. They were removed from the city somewhat, the group of men hanging around the wounded taking a break and getting some rest. The three mind-wounded, which is what they were calling Sanders and the other two, dozed in the soft grass. The physically wounded were spread out, wherever they were comfortable, healing. Marc had seen to everyone. They had lost nearly two dozen men, and five more probably wouldn’t last the night. But based on the fact that they demolished the enemy, their numbers were excellent. At least, that’s what all the veterans were saying.
Mark looked at Sanders, lying on his back with a grimace aimed at the sky, knowing the vicious battle commander could sometimes give the woman pause. But while he was healing quickly, which had something to do with Shanti, he was in no shape to talk sense into her, let alone get her to eat. Lucius was the next best option, but he was in the city, trying to reestablish their government and a sense of order. He had a mind for business and the Captain trusted him more than anyone else, so that made sense. But it didn’t help Marc at the moment.
The only other person who would make a difference was the Captain himself, and Marc would rather chew his arm off before approaching that man. When the Captain looked at a guy it made him want to hide, or pee himself. It wasn’t that the looks were overly aggressive, either. Sometimes he was even half smiling—at least when Shanti or Lucius was around and not pissing him off—but he always had that alpha thing going on that made a guy realize he was nowhere near as tough and confident as he had originally thought. That really, he should just fall in line like everyone else. And Marc wasn’t even one of the tough and confident ones, so he just got scared straight away.
But Shanti was wasting away. She was spending all her energy healing the mind-wounded and none on herself.
“How is she?” Leilius asked as he walked up. He looked like a peacock dressed in rumpled clothes.
Marc shook his head. “She won’t eat.”
“I am sitting right here, and I am fine. Leilius, this was one easy battle. If you get over-confident, you will get dead. Popularity goes farther when you are modest. Women will come calling regardless, but the good ones will leave soon after. Get wise, keep your discipline, and stay alive.”
“Yes, s’am.”
“Oh, we are back to that title, are we? Well good, that one made the most sense.” Shanti leaned her head against the tree trunk and closed her eyes. A tear slid out of the corner of her left eye.
Leilius jumped as if he’d been poked in the backside with a fire stirrer. He looked at Marc with wide eyes.
“I am sad. Therefore, I cry,” Shanti said unabashedly. “I realize big strong men are trained not to show emotion in this land. It is a shame. It makes you brittle. But I am not from this land. And I am a woman, which your people have decided can shed a few tears in public. So…there you go.”
“S’cam, it weirds me out that you can read my thoughts,” Leilius mumbled.
“I cannot read your thoughts, Leilius, I can read your emotions. You are now embarrassed, but you were shocked and…freaked out, I think you say, a second ago. If you projected less, I wouldn’t be accosted by that information.”
“Can you teach me to do that? Stop projecting, I mean?”
Shanti sighed. “I have never heard of teaching anything to someone without the Gift. I don’t know that it can be done. But until I met the Inkna, I didn’t know of a few other things that can be done. It is worth a try, I suppose. We don’t have much time, however. I will be moving on as soon as my shoulder heals.”
Marc said, “What do you mean?” at the same time as Leilius said, “Wha—err?”
“I need to be on my way.” It was unclear if she was answering them, or just continuing with her monologue. “This battle will draw attention. The Inkna will wonder how someone beat their Sarshers. They will wonder if it was in-house. From what I heard over the last year, Sturgane was more ambitious than the rest. People might think the Graygual removed him, which will keep the Inkna quiet for a time. They will figure it out eventually, though. Then they will raise the alarm and the Graygual will be drawn here. They will search harder for me. That will lead them to you. Then to the discovery of Cayan. Then to war.
“I need to get help. I also need to be on my own. It is better. For me. I have lost most of my people already, and the others will stay lost unless I can get help. I do not want to make friends just to lose them. I will never again have the one I loved. He didn’t go with them. And my Chance died. So I’m a nomad until I get help. Or I am dead. I feel dead already. I’m not sure which I dread more—alive with this pain, or dead and answering for my sins. It’s all the same, maybe. I will eternally get no rest. What a terrible job, this Chosen.”
“Does the Captain know?” Marc asked, not sure what to say about the rambling. She was, without a doubt, spilling secrets. Marc knew that. But he didn’t know how they were important. Or why.
She shrugged. “Not from my mouth, but I’m sure he suspects I must go. Or maybe that I will go. Who’s to say what goes on in that head of bricks?”
Marc got up slowly. He didn’t know much, but he knew that if she died or left, they were sunk. That Inkna army would have taken them down without her battling with her mind. She needed to train the Captain to do it. If there were more people that used that type of fighting, which it sounded like there were, she had to stay on their side. She had to. Or they would end up like the people here—poor, distraught, or used for unspeakable things. Marc wouldn’t see his sister handed over, or his father starving. He wouldn’t!
“Leilius, watch her. I’ll be back,” Marc said as he turned.
“But—“
With her eyes still closed and her head leaning back against the tree, the sun sprinkling her face through the leaves, a smile soaked up Shanti’s face. “I only bite during sex, Leilius, and you are too young for that.”
Marc paused when he finally found the Captain. The man was sweat-stained and exhausted, but he wasn’t giving up. He was helping the townsfolk with the manual labor, right alongside his men, cleaning up the destruction that the battle caused. The strength of the man was awe-inspiring. He could lift twice what the man next to him could manage, and could work for longer. That fact didn’t help Marc’s desire to be somewhere else besides where he was, stiffly walking up to the large man with a plea on behalf of a foreign woman that the Captain probably didn’t care about in the least—other than to laugh at her clumsy execution of their language and confusion of their customs. Marc had never understood his leader’s humor where it concerned S’am, but then, he had never understood the Captain, full stop. It wa
s best to just steer clear.
But here he was, tremors from head to foot, wringing his hands like a maid caught stealing, shuffling up and clearing his throat. “Sir?” he said weakly.
After a moment, watching the Captain wrestle a giant beam to the side, Marc tried again. “Captain, sir?”
The large man turned and looked down at him. He wasn’t that much taller, but it certainly seemed that way now, or any time Marc had been stupid enough to get a dose of the Captain’s full attention.
He felt like a worm watching a giant boot descend.
“Cadet, yes. How are the wounded?”
“Um, okay, I guess. Sir. Five are dying. Shanti—uh, S’am, the foreign woman—is easing their troubles somehow. She doesn’t say how, but it seems to help. They look peaceful.”
“And you can do nothing for them?”
“No, sir. I tried. They have wounds that cannot be sewn or otherwise healed. Too deep or internal, with too much blood loss. If we had a full hospital it would only make a difference to one of them, and that would probably still be a losing battle.”
“I see. And what of Sanders and the two others?”
“Sh—the foreign woman, um—“
“Calling her by her name is acceptable, Cadet.” The Captain’s voice softened, if a steel sieve could be called soft.
“Yes, sir. Well, she is doing something with them, too. It is sapping her energy, though, sir. She is fading. Visibly fading.”
The Captain’s eyes glowed faintly for a quick moment. It was eerie and a little scary. The man didn’t need any more ways to freak Marc out, but he kept finding them. “Yes, I see. I will monitor that, Cadet. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
The Captain went to turn away but Marc didn’t leave. It was not why he had come. Not the only reason, anyway. Sometimes he truly hated his life. “Uh, sir?”
