Vengeance Is Mine

by Katherine Elizabeth Curtis

  “What I'm teaching all of you out there is nothing,” Nathan said, pride creeping into his voice at the thought of all he could do, so much more advanced than the baby stuff he was teaching his class. It was a wrong feeling and he knew that but it didn't stop him.

  Ethan's eyes widened and Nathan knew what he was thinking. The moves taught to the main group of boys were gruelling, no doubt about it, and some of the techniques were complicated, especially for someone just learning. But they were nothing compared to Defensive Arts and Nathan felt he should lay out exactly what it would mean to study such things.

  “You have to practice constantly, even if it's just by yourself. I'll be available at times for practice, but not many people in here, not even the trainers except a few know how to do Defensive Arts properly, let only in a shoddy fashion, so learning to practice on and by yourself will be your biggest asset. And you have to do it all the time. I'm not kidding about this. And it's going to be hard. You'll feeling like giving up a dozen, a hundred times. But that's when you have to press on. Give up half-way through the whole thing and you'll never regain your footing.”

  Ethan drew in a big breath, but all he said was, “Cool. Should we start now?”

  Nathan stared at him for a moment, and then a grin split his face. This was going to be better than he had ever expected.

  “Yes. Let's begin.”

  :::::

  Nathan had never forgotten the children. Neither had Hunter. It made Nathan's heart ache at times to remember the ward, and how he had vowed to rescue them all, but even that memory was growing dim and dusty after six years and though he fought to keep it alive, it was slipping ever so slowly from his grasp. They had simply never found the ward again and they had searched almost all of the facility – at least as much as they could do without being caught.

  At the time, Nathan was glad they had been careful and Hunter had never been beaten up again for searching for the truth about what had happened, but now he cursed their overt carefulness. They had left large parts of the facility un-searched, simply because there was a slight chance of their being caught there. Hunter had urged Nathan to push forward, but he'd refused, mainly because the memory of Hunter's punishment was still fresh in his mind.

  And then, Nathan was appointed junior trainer much earlier than normal, with his experience and marvellous leadership skills cited as the reason. Nathan still didn't trust anyone, and he had concluded – and rightly so – that the position was merely a distraction, and for some reason they were using gentler techniques to make him stop and forget what he'd seen rather than what had happened to Hunter. He wished at first that they had done the same with him, so that he'd knew where they all stood, but with this he had to constantly be guessing at underlying motives and it had worn on him slowly but surely.

  At last Nathan had admitted defeat. Not openly to himself and certainly not to Hunter, but he started to slip away from his burning desire to complete their mission, and threw his heart and soul into molding and training new boys. He worked on forgetting so there would be no regrets and in some ways he had succeeded all to well. But the unfinished work still cast a shadow over his life. Hunter had stopped trying as well, once he suspected Nathan's heart was not in it, since alone he couldn't do half as much as they could together.

  They remained brothers and extremely close friends, but the unfinished mission was a slight wedge between them, although neither of them really realized it was there. But not knowing didn't make it go away.

  Hunter's body flooded with adrenaline when he heard the news. The time had come.

  He left the briefing room and went in search of Nathan. He found him in the tiny cubicle beside his own. “Nate, you won't believe it,” he said excitedly, grabbing his friend's arm.

  “What?” Nate asked, ready to share his excitement.

  “The queen is in danger. Another woman has challenged her and so the facility is sending in reinforcements to help the queen's Warrior Women. That means us.” He couldn't believe the day he'd waited for was finally here. Now he would be able to see the queen and show her his loyalty in fighting for her. But he didn't understand Nate's reaction. At first his face was excited the same as his, and happy. But it changed to one of regret and disappointment in just a moment.

  “What is it?” Hunter asked anxiously.

  “I'm nineteen.”

  “So? That's-” he began, and then stopped. Oh no. Nineteen. Only young men twenty and older were allowed to go. Hunter bit his lip. Whenever he and Nate had talked about fighting for the queen, it had always been the two of them, joined together, invincible, never giving way to the enemy queen.

  And now he would have to go alone.

  “But-but don't you think they'd make some exception? You're only a few months away from twenty.”

  Nate shook his head. “I've already asked them earlier. They said no, and it was definite.” At his words, Hunter felt all his hopes deflating. Of course he would go, it would be unthinkable to pass up a chance like this, and even if he wanted to stay at the facility, he'd be forced to go, but it wouldn't be the same without Nate. Nothing would be.

  “It's all right, Hunter,” Nate said. “I could get a chance yet. The queen might not need you right away.”

  “We move out tonight.”

  Nate's face fell. He bit his lip and let out a long, quivery sigh. “This isn't going to come between us,” he said at last, more to himself than to Hunter, “nothing can do that. Go and fight. When you get back, you can tell me all about it. Okay?”

  Hunter hesitated and then he agreed. “Okay.”

  They shook hands on it, and both were trembling. Hunter's from nervousness and excitement and Nate's from, he suspected, repressed tears. Nate didn't cry easily, far from it, but this was a momentous disappointment. Hunter doubted either of them would ever fully recover from it.

  :::::

  Nathan went to the train to see Hunter off. It was at nighttime, naturally, and there were so many other young men at the station, Nathan had to hold on to Hunter's hand to keep from being separated. Hunter only had a small bag of basic necessities in the way of clothing as he and all the other boys had been assured that their stay in the Capitol would not be long.

  Nathan had his doubts. He had nothing concrete to base his feelings on, but he just felt in some way that this would be the last time he would see Hunter for a very, very long time. This was partly why he decided to accompany him to the train station. That, and Hunter had requested it.

  “So, I guess this is goodbye,” Nathan said as Hunter was about to get on the train that would take him away.

  Hunter nodded. “Don't sound so sad about it, though,” he said, with a smile. “I'll be back soon.”

  Nathan didn't give in to his fears, and definitely wouldn't tell Hunter, but they were there all the same. The frigid night away whipped around them, sending a chill down Nathan's spine. He rubbed his arms and then hugged Hunter. “Goodbye.” Hunter got on the train and he gave a little wave. Then the train was pulling out of the station, and Hunter was gone.

  Nathan hoped it wasn't for good.

  Hunter leaned back in his seat. It was late at night and he hadn't slept all day, but he didn't feel tired in the least. There was a sort of jittery excitement in all his movements and he couldn't concentrate on anything. The inside of the train was cold, just like outside had been but he figured it would warm up soon with a combination of body heat – there were nineteen other young men in the train car with him – and the lights and engine.

  For a long time he sat and stared, looking at nothing in particular, his mind racing ahead to getting off at the Capitol and seeing the queen. He really had no idea what to expect, except a battle with an usurper and whatever mangy army she was able to come up with. It would be easy. It did bother him in a vague way that he had never met with a veteran of the last battle, but the facility was rather out of the way, so it wasn't all that surprising.

  After a while, he tried to strike up a
conversation with the boy on his left, but the attempt fell flat. His heart wasn't in it, and he suspected the other boy's wasn't either. He did catch some intriguing bits of information from other hushed conversations talking about meeting up with other units, but after a while he wasn't able to pick anything else up and it got boring.

  He slept.

  When he woke up again, it was considerably lighter outside. The sky was grey, tinged with slight touches of pink and peach and gold, which meant the sun would come up shortly. From all appearances, nothing much had changed in the state of the train's inhabitants, so he was glad that he'd slept. It would have been too much to stay awake all night and expect to be fresh for the morning and the Capitol.

  And speaking of the Capitol...

  A voice came over the train's sophisticated sound and loudspeaker system, making all the boys, including the ones that were asleep, jump. “Attention all passengers. We'll be pulling into the Capitol city in just twenty minutes,” - instantly excited talking filled the train car Hunter was in - “so make sure you have all your belongings with you. If you forget anything, you will not be able to come back and get it.”

  The voice stopped but the talking continued. Hunter didn't listen to any of it. The last words of the woman giving instructions kept running through his head. “...if you forget anything, you will not be able to come back and get it.” Did that mean he would not be returning? A little grain of hope came to rest in him. Perhaps-

  Dare he think it? It was an amazing and inspiring thought, although probably not something that would come to pass. Still, he allowed himself to think it. Perhaps when they were successful, the queen would allow him and some of the others to stay in the Capitol. It must be an amazing place, and to live there would be so much better than staying in the facility. And maybe even Nathan and his other friends – and Chad, of course – could come. That would be perfect.

  Cheers sounded from inside the train, and Hunter caught his first glimpse of the Capitol. It was a breathtaking sight. The newly risen sun glinted off of tall buildings, so tall that they seemed to pierce the clouds. There were dozens of them, rising up like sentinels in the sky, and the sun reflecting on them made them appear to be made out of pure gold.

  There were many, lower houses and mansions, not unlike the ones Hunter regularly cleaned, but much, much grander. And then he caught sight of a huge building, so large and vast that his mind could hardly comprehend it. “The palace,” he whispered to himself. It was only a guess but instinctively he knew he was right. For what else could it be?

  It was all so wonderful he almost forgot that he was coming here to fight, not enjoy the city, and that the fight could end in death. It was a fatal mistake.

  :::::

  Hunter soon found he'd been mislaid concerning the amount of luggage he'd have to bring. The battle did not begin immediately, and for that he was grateful, but he also didn't get to see the queen, for which he was not grateful. He was taken with the close to five hundred other boys from his facility to the palace. But instead of an audience with the queen which he had somehow expected, they were taken to a large room, or rather a section of the palace that had many rooms, were they had stayed for some time.

  There were other boys there when they had arrived, five days ago, and more were pouring in every day. New arrivals no longer were any cause for a stir, except among the arrivals themselves, and Hunter had taken to sitting in one corner of the large, austere room that was the common living area and thinking of things.

  He had expected there to be more boys, or soldiers, as they now liked to call themselves, but he hadn't imagined there to be such a huge number. There must be at least a few thousand by now and more kept arriving. Perhaps the challenger had more power than they had thought before. And the soldiers who arrived were obviously from different parts of the nation, or even the world. Hunter had never seen so many different kinds of people, and most of their accents were strange, or their language unrecognizable. He didn't like being surrounded constantly by so many people, so he withdrew into himself.

  His mind was usually occupied with thinking through his defence strategies and practising in his mind – he couldn't do it with someone else in private and doing it among all these people would ruin his concentration. He sighed. Things were dull. Going to the Capitol was nothing like he had imagined. He wished for Nathan, or even Chad, to lighten the mood and to talk with, but, of course, they weren't here and couldn't be here.

  Just then, his eyes caught sight of someone who looked slightly familiar in the crowd. His mind refused to believe what his eyes saw. He sucked in his breath, got off of the stool he was sitting on, and walked closer to the figure who was slipping in and out of the crowd, a slouchy cap pulled low over his face, keeping his head down, and limping, probably to disguise his gait.

  But Hunter would know him anywhere.

  Nate.

  He crept up to Nate and when he was close enough grabbed his arm. He jumped, but didn't cry out. “What on earth are you doing here?” Hunter whispered, his voice a mixture of delight, frustration, and a little bit of anger.

  “Let go,” Nate said. “People are looking.”

  “That's all they do. Let them look.” Still, despite his words, Hunter let go of Nate's arm. “You owe me an explanation.”

  “Sure,” Nate said, trying to be offhanded. But Hunter knew him better. He was nervous, scared to death actually, probably at his daring for doing such a thing. Hunter didn't really need an explanation, as he could probably piece together what all had happened better than Nate himself. He had snuck on to the train after Hunter had gotten on, being careful to enter a different train car than the one Hunter had been on, and then he had blended into the press of young men leaving the train and kept out of Hunter's way until now. He probably hadn't even seen him in the crowd.

  They went back to where Hunter had been sitting before he spotted Nate. “Out with it.”

  “I didn't go by the train.”

  “What?” Hunter asked, amazed. “How'd you get here, then?”

  “I ran.”

  “You ran all the way here?”

  “Well, most of it, anyway. I was able to jump on the back of a waggon at one point. It's lucky I was or I still wouldn't be here.” For the first time, Hunter noticed that Nate looked absolutely exhausted. He'd try to make the explanation short. Then he remembered Nate was still talking. “I didn't come here to fight. I came here to warn you. You aren't coming back.”

  For a moment Hunter's thoughts went back to what he had imagined about staying in the Capitol, but he realized Nate's tone wasn't talking about happy news. He was deadly serious, and the thing was, Hunter hoped he was wrong about the deadly part. “What do you mean?”

  “They cleaned out all you and the boys who came things. Threw them away. New trainers have taken your rooms. You're not coming back.”

  Hunter couldn't believe it. “But-”

  “It's true. I can't stay here long, or else they'll see I'm missing from the hospital ward – I said I was sick, and then I escaped – and I'll be hurt or killed. But you have to escape from here tonight with as many of the others that will come with you.” Nate seemed to have grown up even more since the last time Hunter saw him. He was firm and decided, and Hunter knew from experience that rude awakenings did that to people.

  With a quick nod, Nate disappeared into the crowd.

  Hunter had never doubted Nate's word, just as he'd taught Nate not to doubt his, and he began working out a plan to alert as many boys as possible of the danger and escape from there, tonight if possible. It would be difficult to organize the whole thing, and he wasn't sure where they'd go once they escaped, but he just knew they had to go. Hopefully Nate would make it out before things got to hot.

  It took him a while to come up with a proper plan to alert as many people as possible. Shouting it out was too risky, as an enemy would probably hear him and then it would be all over before anyone realized what was going on. Besides, he woul
dn't be sure how to word it so everyone could understand, and he certainly didn't know any of the foreign languages so many other people used. Passing the message along through different boys and telling them to tell others was also a risk, since the message could be garbled in passage.

  He finally decided that the best course of action was to go from boy to boy, starting with the ones from the facility he lived in and branching out from there. Perhaps he could speed things up by telling boys he trusted to pass the word along.

  Just as he was about to give the word to one of the trainers that he knew semi-well, a blast of trumpets sounded from outside the large room and the door was flung open. In walked a hooded woman with a decidedly military bearing and outfit. “The challenger has been sighted entering the Capitol's borders. She and her Warrior Women will probably be here within the hour. All of you follow me.”

  Every one of the boys, including Hunter, walked out the door, following the woman, who, Hunter concluded must be a military leader or general. Other such women, followed by hundreds of boys joined them, so they must have received the announcement as well. They were taken to a huge vast room, so large it almost defied the mind's capacities. The ceiling was almost too high to be seen and despite the large amounts of drapery and tapestry covering the walls, everyone's voice still echoed. It was an eerie effect.

  “You will eat here and then each of you will chose a weapon from the cabinet. Once that is done, you'll be shown were to go for the battle.” Her voice betrayed no emotion, only a martial strictness and severeness. It was as though she was a mechanical figure and Hunter felt a chill go through him.

  They had eaten before, of course, but the food had tasted strange although it looked exactly like what he was used to. It seemed that most of the others tasted nothing different and they all ate well, and often. Hunter cautiously tasted some of the huge array of food that was laid out, but the same slightly bitter aftertaste was left on his tongue. However, he was hungry, so he just shrugged and ate as much as he needed to assuage his hunger, at least for a while. He was one of the first ones finished, which is what he had wanted. Now he had his choice of whatever weapon he wanted.