What was this Traveler bullshit?
Randi had come to stand next to him. “I think the chumps that came before us muddied the waters. We're gonna be real popular. Uh-huh,” she whispered.
Tiff looked around, having heard that last. “Yup, better tune-up, Caleb. Things are gonna go sideways.”
Gee, ya think?
Tucker's eyes narrowed at the group, then shifted to the Band. “This doesn't concern you of the Band.”
Caleb looked at the Guys with Gills. They didn't look exactly thrilled with this dude. He spoke weird too. Like old-fashioned and modern at the same time. Didn't make sense.
“Leave us with the women and we won't kill you.” Tucker threw his palm behind him to indicate the men at his back. “Our numbers are not to your advantage,” he restated smugly.
Caleb wasn't liking this guy. But there was something he wanted to get nailed down. “Hey!”
Tucker swung his face in Caleb's direction. “What do ya mean, 'leave the women'?”
But it was one of the big warriors who answered, the one that didn't wear a metal breastplate but somehow resembled the other ginormous dude.
Bracus replied for the Band, “These men be of the fragment. Marauders who plunder, pillage and confiscate anything of value upon the spoils of their raids.”
The woman who had been struck said, “Aye, 'tis true.” The man that held her gave the slightest incline of his head in agreement.
Caleb's eyes went to the woman who had first spoken. She was unbelievably tiny, smaller even than Jade, her deep red hair striking against her pale skin. He addressed her now. “So these guys...” Caleb looked at what he now knew to be the fragment, “rob everybody and take the women?”
Matthew nodded. “We leave, and it will be your women as well.”
Not on his watch it wouldn't.
Caleb turned to his group and Jonesy said it best, “Eff that. You're not touching our chicks, or any of the other ones, ya pervs!”
Tucker scowled, they were difficult to understand, speaking just that much differently than the Travelers he'd become acquainted with. But he understood the basis of it. Yes, he did. They were challenging him and his fragment.
They would lose.
The tension could be cut with a knife and Clara spoke into the middle of it, slicing it as if she had used a weapon, “There are few females Outside. This group roams about in the hopes that an unprotected one may be captured for exploit.”
The group of teens assimilated her words quickly.
“Okay, just point out the bad guys and let's kick some ass!” Bry said, to which Jonesy gave a fist-pump in the air in agreement.
Caleb looked at the queen and the warriors at her back. His count said around ten, the females useless. Except for the two that somehow looked alike. Both like female versions of the huge men. Finally, Caleb's gaze shifted to the one that had his huge hands encircled around her upper arms, his blue eyes like chips of the sky. He recognized something familiar in them. The queen was his Jade.
He'd die to protect her.
Well ditto, Caleb thought, taking an instant liking to the warriors.
Parallel worlds, parallel principles.
Caleb could dig it.
“'Kay, these ones are obviously the bad guys,” Caleb said with a smirk as the men of the fragment unsheathed dirks from their hiding places.
Definitely badass.
The guys in his group stood in front of the girls and Tiff came to stand beside Caleb.
“How many?” she asked.
He turned and made eye contact with Tiff. “Living or dead?”
“Dead,” Tiff responded.
Caleb paused for a heartbeat... two. “Enough.”
“'Kay, let's round them up. Even up these odds.”
“Caleb...” Jade began, sensing something.
He turned to her. “I think... I sense the dead are these guys,” she looked at the fragment.
Caleb hesitated, thinking about his words. “Won't matter... ” he paused, “... the dead are always the same.”
“Daniel!” Clara shouted as the men of the fragment began to move toward them and Matthew dragged her behind the shield of his body.
Daniel responded, wrenching himself free from the ones that held him, unsheathing his long sword as he did.
“What do the young ones say?” she asked.
Daniel responded with his translation even as he swung, “They will assist us in our defense!” he shouted over the beginnings of an unbeatable battle, Tucker moving straight for Queen Clara as Matthew pulled his lips away from his teeth in a smile of pure rage and vengeance.
Savage vengeance.
Caleb had only time to grab Tiff's hand, recognizing Tucker and crew for the dirty fighters he knew they would be.
He was familiar with that style.
Yes, indeedy. Lots of practice on that score.
Caleb ascertained Jade's position and waded into the center of the battle, Tiff's hand in his.
John Terran met his eyes, releasing his ability to negate the pull of the dead. The voices of the soulless rose to an ear-shattering chorus only he and Tiff could hear, her power amplifying Caleb's.
They put out a call to the dead that could be felt for miles and Caleb watched as bones erupted from the ground, in a tornado of ivory, they hit those of the fragment in their haste to reconstruct to their proper owners. As if pulled by invisible strings, they melded together in midair, solidifying from nothing to the zombies he knew they would become.
Caleb smiled in anger and joy, his power over the dead unabated by location.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, the ghost of Gramps' voice breathed through his mind.
Bracus had both dirks naked in his hands, Rowenna at his left, his dominant hand free to slash when bursting out of the snow laden meadow rose bones and something that had a color of sand... but was not.
Bracus squinted then felt his eyes widen in recognition. He and Philip looked at each other for a silent moment. What sorcery was this?
Tucker hesitated as bodies knitted themselves together before their eyes. Bones flew and connected on an unseen wind, skin shrouding the skeletal forms until bodies were covered in a cloak of recognition. Tucker stepped back from a battle for the first time in his life.
A rare feeling overcame him.
Fear. His eyes went to those of the Traveler. Tucker could see it on his face. He called these undead to him with a hand of power.
The ones massacred in the battle last year. His original fragment. Now alive by black magic.
He sneered, his resolve returning. Nothing would stop him from killing them all and stealing their women.
What power did the dead have?
None.
Tucker surged forward, thrusting his blade into the nearest creature that had come out of nothingness of the frozen meadow, the smell from its vileness a weapon itself.
If they breathed they could be slain.
The zombie of the fragment looked at his former leader, the hilt of a dirk glowing softly out of the deepest cavity of his body and thoughts like jagged pieces of glass coalesced in a brain that was not formed for high reasoning. But there was a basest sludge that recognized two things: he had never liked his former leader.
Tucker, the name rose to the surface of the slow-moving pond of his mind.
And there was one that he had a connection to that was so powerful his being felt bound by steel ropes to his mind, his will.
His face turned to the Master, eyes rolling wetly in his skull, plums of black encased in flesh gone soft with rot.
Caleb met the eyes of the one that had been impaled by the leader of the fragment and gave him the command, subdue him.
He looked at the other dead gathered, obviously the same as the enemy now in their sights.
Subdue them all, Caleb commanded again, the vision in his mind of the fragment who lived.
The fragment who were now zombies turned to Caleb as one, in various st
ages of decomposition, the air not frozen enough to dull the scent of them.
It was not kill. Not yet. But it might come to that.
Caleb realized that when it came to zombies as weapons, he was a slow learner.
Clara looked at the creatures that smelled as the oysters of the fields when left in the sun too long. She backed away in horror, her hand covering her nose as she breathed through her mouth. They were one and the same of those they had fought one year past.
The same men of the fragment.
Again.
But on this day, no longer alive.
Clara looked frantically around herself, relieved beyond measure that her false mother slumbered under a carpet of earth fifteen miles to the south of their position. The thought of seeing Queen Ada again... as one of the dead creatures before her, made her knees weak with fear.
She looked at the young Traveler who was the undead puppeteer. The puppets began to fight their own kind. The fragment fell under fists where the skin came away from the bone as melted candle wax.
Clara shuddered in revulsion even as she rejoiced in their possible survival.
The Band recovered first, seeing that the undead ones of the fragment attacked the ones which lived.
Bracus felt anxiety for the first time in battle. Afraid of what he did not understand, of the unnaturalness of it all. But in his core he was frighteningly practical. As were his Bandmates.
He met their eyes. Their expression mirrored his own.
They moved forward as a unit.
As warriors. To fight alongside the dead of the fragment if they must.
Randi looked at the fighting, Caleb's zombies handing the creepy fragment their psycho asses and thought it was about time for a retreat when one of the said creepers grabbed her and she screamed.
Alex slammed two fragment's heads together, checking his strength, and rung their bells, their asses sliding to his feet. He turned just in time to see a huge dude latch onto Randi and with a roar he sprinted to her side, his body hurting as he moved. His ability of super human strength burdened by the onslaught of sensitivity brought during the rapid cycle of growth.
Alex ignored the pain, redoubling his speed.
Tucker jerked his dirk out of the guts of the zombie and entrails protruded where his blade had been. He grinned, victorious. Until he looked into eyes that were half gone with rot, his gaze then sliding to the black ruin of its mouth.
The worse part was he thought he may recognize him from Before.
Tucker held the scream in with an effort, pinwheeling his arms behind him in terror.
The zombie advanced, a grin spreading the thinnest layer of skin taut, his tongue caressing a mouth not whole, but a black abyss of decay.
Tucker turned tail and ran for the opposite tree line.
He didn't think of the living fragment who remained.
His only thought was to escape the horror of what pursued him, the smell encroaching even as he ran, his mind counting his contingent from the prior year.
How many men had fought here? Twenty of the fragment? More?
Its hot breath was on Tucker's back, the fetid stench smelling of bowels released and rotting meat.
Tucker sprinted for the forest.
To perceived safety.
Rowenna fell to the center, Philip and Bracus on either side, they incapacitated many, she killed more.
When the dead creature's bones fit together in the air her step had faltered. What gruesome magic was this? Her eyes sought the boy who was perhaps Maddoc's age. But Rowenna was pragmatic by nature, as all the Band were. Nay, they did not fight the dead, but the ones which lived. She drove toward the middle with purpose, murder beating in her mind as it always did during war.
Edwin and Calia fought side by side, slashing and moving with speed. Had she been able to reflect, she would have noted how they fought together as two hands on the same body. As it were, she could not, focused as she was on survival.
Clara stood behind Matthew as Tucker came for her but was immediately engaged by one of the dead fragment. Matthew hesitated for a moment and Clara guessed he deliberated on which enemy to pursue. He looked briefly at the young Travelers, dismissing them as potential enemies. Then his eyes narrowed on the living fragment, the dead of no concern, the sole focus on their living brethren. Killing intent clearly obvious even on features that were no longer whole, but suffered from decomposition to a moderate degree, some were unrecognizable.
Clara watched the surreal scene unravel before her, dead fragment abusing the living.
The zombies beat the living fragment into submission, their strength fierce, their will as one with a powerfully singular focus. The Master's command the only one which mattered.
Subdue.
It was simple for the dead. They had done very much the same in life and were glad to fight, whatever the reason, the command by the necromancer automatic.
Like breathing, though they needed no air.
Randi panicked, beginning to hyperventilate. The awful man above her smelled like Body Odor squared. He raised his fist, the shadow of it blotting out the pale winter sunlight, a moon of flesh tearing downward to strike her and she squeezed her eyes shut.
Thinking of only one thing.
Escape.
Caleb felt the dimensions shift, like tectonic plates realigning and recognized what was happening. Instantly his attention came away from his original instruction for the dead to a new one:
Rest.
Maybe he'd done enough to circumvent the killing of good people by bad.
His last thought before the world dimmed and fell away was that it was the same wherever you were.
There was evil and there was good.
In his world those shades had blended. Caleb saw things in gray now.
He watched the field as if being pulled backwards by a giant hook, speeding backwards, the periphery narrowing at the edge of his vision. He could no longer feel Tiff's hand in his and he was wild with worry that Jade was not traveling back with him.
His last sight was a pinpoint of the field, the red-haired queen seeing his departure with a look on her face that would haunt him forever.
Gratitude.
*
Clara saw the Travelers shimmer in the field. They were clustered together save one. She saw the one which commanded the undead army ripple in the air, surprise coming over his face. He gave a look to the girl captured in the arms of a fragment, his fist readied to pummel her.
Clara gasped as a brilliant light began to shine from the girl's body, iridescent and beautiful, as if she was a pearl herself, in a multitude of different colors.
Clara had never seen anything as beautiful in her life.
The colors burst and spread, wrapping the other Travelers with cloaks of rainbows.
As they faded, the last to wink away was the boy.
She swore he had said something.
Thought something, she almost had it... then it was gone.
Clara was grateful beyond words. She should have been frightened by what he had done. For her. For the Band.
For the good of the many.
Clara looked upon him as she dwelt upon those things.
And with a brilliant flash, the young Travelers were gone.
The undead fell where they stood.
Their strings severed.
Matthew strode to where the corpses of the fragment had fought against the living, toeing the frozen ground.
He marveled they were gone. He had watched them swallowed up where they fought, the ground a cavernous mouth, reclaiming them.
Matthew stared at the living fragment which remained, his eyes narrowed. They mattered little; their leader had fled.
The Travelers were gone.
The Band encircled the remaining fragment.
Clara walked forward slowly, the unaccustomed garments swishing against each other in a rustling sound of the leather meeting. She looked for Calia and their eyes met.
; Clara's filled with tears when she saw Rowenna and Evelyn.
Evelyn rushed forward and threw herself in Clara's arms.
“I was worried beyond measure that you would fall to harm's mercy.”
Harm has no mercy, Clara knew.
They held each other tightly.
Bracus' deep voice broke out over the chorus of softer mutterings. “Be gone or die,” he intoned simply to the fragment which remained. It was not uttered as an idle threat, but as a sure promise.
Matthew fingered the hilt of his dirk, his thumb worrying over the agate embedded thereupon over and over, his other hand about the back of Clara's neck. Matthew was not wont to shed tears but seeing the flame atop her head when they departed the forest was a balm to his soul. The happiness that had welled inside him had caused a lump in his throat that had been difficult to swallow past. He lightly squeezed Clara's neck and his heart lifted. His eyes met those of the fragment, then his Bandmates.
Matthew's hand left the warm flesh of the woman he adored with regret as he stepped in front of her.
His body would forever be a living shield of protection.
Tucker looked between the bare branches of the trees, naked of its leaves, at over half of his fragment who lay bleeding and in some cases dying from the wounds inflicted by the creatures conjured by the warlock of a boy.
Tucker was blind with rage. Now: how could he replace his ranks after this? Over half wounded or dead. He grunted in disgust and moved away, heading for the hidden cave that was nearest while the Band engaged the remainder.
They would find their way when and if the Band released them from their brutal care.
It didn't matter. Tucker figured it was survival of the fittest. It helped with the process of keeping only the toughest and most clever of the men. A grim smile formed on his face as he began to jog at a distance he felt would not alert the Band to his position.
savage 04 - the savage vengeance Page 11
