Vengeance Is Mine

by Katherine Elizabeth Curtis

  He had his knife with him at all times, but that wouldn't be good for combat, except for extremely close quarters and he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He selected a compound bow and the full quiver of twenty arrows. He had never really learned to shoot a pistol or rifle properly and a bow and arrow fitted the theme of his Defensive Arts better, so that's what he chose.

  He'd not forgotten Nate's warning, but he couldn't see any way to send the message through in time. Already, most of the boys had finished and selected their weapons and they were following that woman out. He shook his head slightly and followed. After all, there was safety in numbers and if they beat the challenger and her army, they would surely be allowed to go home.

  :::::

  The sight of them chilled his blood.

  The young men stood in ranks outside the palace, guarding the building from the row upon row of Warrior Women standing behind the challenger. There were so many Warrior Women, much, much more than there were boys. Their ranks stretched as far as the eye could see, and then some. Hunter looked about at the other boys, to see if their faces and eyes reflected the fear he himself felt, but without exception all the young men he could see standing about him – he was in the third rank – wore dull, tired expressions.

  They didn't show any emotion, not even fear, and they were hardly capable of holding their heads up, let alone their weapons. Even Hunter felt his senses becoming dull and listless. He had felt this way before since coming here, but this was worse, especially as he needed all his sense on alert right now if he were to come out of this alive. What could have made him and the others so terribly-?

  The food. It must have been drugged with something. His heart seized with real fear. They had all been led into a trap here, Nate was right, and now it was too late to do anything about it. Even now he could hear the challenger calling out commands to her Warrior Women. He also heard another shout coming from above his head, and he turned to see a woman, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, standing on the balcony above them all. He knew it was the queen, but right at that moment he didn't care. He was as angry as he could be in his drugged state, and he planned to use that anger to survive.

  He seemed to be seeing everything through a dark glass, not being able to tell what was real and what was not. The cry of “Attack!” faintly met his ear, as though shouted from some distant place, and the next instant he wasn't sure whether he had really heard it, or just imagined it. But the others were running forward, weapons at the ready, so he did as well.

  And that's when the killing started.

  Boys were dropping all around him, and he suddenly knew that this was real. Terrifyingly real. He started shooting arrows as quickly as possible, not really seeing where the went, just knowing that he had to do something to stem the tide of steadily approaching Warrior Women. Soon his arrows were all used up, and he pulled out his knife.

  The action surprised him, and he stared at the knife for a long moment, as if really seeing it for the first time. He threw it away from him. He didn't want to kill anyone, especially not in such close quarters as a knife would incur. He didn't want to fight for the queen, for he now knew that it had all been a trap, for what reason he didn't know but a trap nonetheless, and she was part of it.

  It was astonishing, at least to him, that he had made it this far towards the Warrior Women without being at least wounded. He could see them up close now, and saw the sun gleaming on their thin plated, though extremely durable armour. The only part of their face that he could see was their eyes, glowing in the darkness of their masks and slightly pulled back hoods. There seemed to be no soul in those eyes, but he didn't turn back.

  He was close enough to see their weapons, as well. Strange, sharp knives, and small pistols and ropes. He would use his Defensive Arts to ward them off, but not kill them, for as long as he could. After that...well, there would be no 'after that'. He only hoped that Nate had gotten out of the palace before the announcement of the challenger had come.

  His senses spun out of control for a moment and staggered backward. A Warrior Woman had crept up behind him and was choking him with one of those long, thin, snakelike ropes. He gasped for air and then let himself slide to the ground, his body going limp. Just a moment later he jumped up as quickly as he could, ready to go into defence mode to neutralize the woman who had just attacked him.

  But she had suspected a trick, and was waiting for him, knife in hand.

  He raised his foot for a kick and saw the knife.

  Time slowed.

  She lunged forward.

  So did he.

  She was the winner in the battle of speed. The knife plunged into Hunter's stomach. She pulled it out without a second thought and ran off, no doubt looking for her next victim. He raised his head weakly and glanced over the battlefield, the life draining out of him as he looked.

  It was all over. Only a few small hand to hand skirmishers were left on the field. The rest were dead, or dying, just like him. He let his eyes close and rolled over onto his back, not minding the painful protest his body made when he did so. He stared up at the sky for a moment, and then felt dark, invisible weights pulling his eyes down. He surrendered to the sensation.

  Hunter's body went limp.

  The sun beat down on him, but he didn't feel it.

  He didn't feel anything.

  He'd never feel anything again.

  Chapter 5 – The Outcast

  “Is it really necessary to go through all of these things?” one of the servants grumbled to her companion. “I mean, just look at the whole mess. It's disgusting.” They were picking their way along the now deserted battle ground, deserted, that is, except for the many dead bodies lying around everywhere they looked. The challenger had won the battle, and killed the old queen, for she was the new queen now. The servants kept their normal jobs – the change in leadership didn't faze them one bit.

  What fazed Maria, the woman who had spoken, was the fact that she and her friend, Amber had to go through the battlefield and collect any personal effects they could find. There were other women out on the field as well, but through the misty morning light she couldn't see any of them. It felt as though she and Amber were alone in the field of death. She shivered. It was not a pleasant thought.

  “Listen,” Amber said impatiently, “don't whine. We have to make the other boys think we care, at least. All I know is that the head servant, Alice, you know, told me and all the others to come out here and do this. Then, we package up the things according to the facility they come from – there's a special mark for each facility on all the things, or at least there should be – and they get sent back to the facility, the boys remaining know that we honour the dead and it all works out.”

  “How do you know?” Maria said. Amber usually didn't know of such important things; had she overheard a private conversation.

  “I asked. Now c'mon.”

  Though it disgusted her to pick up anything, Maria picked up a knife that was half embedded in the earth, as though someone had thrown it there. How strange. Usually such a knife would be used, not thrown away. She pulled it out of the ground with little effort and examined it closely. It was plain, not richly decorated like so many others she'd seen, and the initials 'H. B.' were carved on the end of the hilt.

  The symbol stamped on the blade showed it was from the Canadian facility so she slipped it into the proper bag that hung at her side. She wondered who had originally owned the knife. It was obviously one of the defenders, and not one of the Warrior Women and she couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness at the thought of a life lost in such a way.

  But it was none of her business, so she pushed any such bits of remorse or regret or conscience away and continued on her way.

  :::::

  Nathan now regretted leaving Hunter and the others. He'd regretted it before, of course, but now even more so. What had possessed him to do such a thing? They needed his help, and he had abandoned all of them. He had not heard anything a
bout the results of the battle, of if it had even been fought yet, but he filled with a vague foreboding and could hardly pay attention to his work.

  Ethan was coming along fine, despite Nathan's lack of concentration lately, and he would probably be promoted to junior trainer in just a little while. There was also a group of thirteen year old boys graduating in a few days, one of whom was Ethan's younger brother. Ethan had told Nathan that he couldn't wait to take his brother to the Outside for the first time and see his reaction. “I thought it was so amazing when I went out the first time,” Ethan had said. “He thinks it'll be great as well.”

  But Nathan was not all that interested in little things like that. He just wanted to know if Hunter was alive.

  Then, one day, rumours started floating around the facility – started who knows how – saying that all the boys were coming back, and that everything was fine. But there was a conflicting rumour stating that a new queen had taken the throne, so Nathan didn't know what to believe. He desperately wanted the first rumour to be true, but doubted it. Even if a new queen hadn't come to the throne, there definitely had been a battle and surely all the young men couldn't have survived that, even if they were victorious. For that reason alone, he doubted the authenticity of the first rumour.

  “Something's happening,” Ethan said, running into Nathan's cubicle/room and breaking into his reverie. “We've all been summoned to the Great Hall.” Instantly Nathan was on the alert. Perhaps the young men had returned. But then why would everyone be sent to the Great Hall? He shook his head slightly. It was too much to figure out, so he decided to just go and see what came of it.

  “I'll be there in a sec,” he said.

  Ethan nodded and left.

  When Nathan reached the Great Hall, he was struck again by how empty the room looked without most of the trainers and older boys. Even though there were still several hundred boys here, it looked mostly empty and even a little sad. One of the leaders stood on the podium. She tested the microphone with a couple of taps of her finger, and then launched into an obviously prepared speech.

  “As you all know, several of our finest young men were sent to protect the queen in her hour of need.” She paused for a moment, only to draw out the agonizing suspense, no doubt. “They did not succeed. A new queen is on the throne, and we must all go to the Capitol at some point to swear allegiance to her. But that's not what I brought you all here to say.”

  Nathan felt like screaming at her to just get on with it. Was Hunter alive, or was he not?

  “Unfortunately, all the young men who left here died courageously for the old queen. We mourn their loss.” She bowed her head for a moment, and that gave the boys in the Hall time to erupt into talking, and crying, and even a few shouts. Nathan said nothing. He was numbed to the core, to stunned to say or do anything. “However,” the leader continued, “we were able to retrieve almost all of their personal belongings. These shall be laid out on the eating tables, and you may come up one by one to take anything that belonged to a friend or relative.”

  She called off a name, the boy named went up, selected something, and then the process began again. Finally, it was Nathan's turn to peruse the tables. He didn't even know what he was looking for, really, but felt that when he saw it, he would know it. Then, he saw it. Hunter's knife. The style and material was unmistakably his, but just to make sure, he looked at the bottom of the hilt. Sure enough, the initials 'H. B.' were carved there.

  It was then that he felt like crying.

  For a moment he hesitated. Chad, Hunter's brother, had still not taken his turn at the tables and didn't he have more right than Nathan to Hunter's knife? Although Nathan didn't like Chad personally, or even really know him, he was Hunter's blood relative, unlike him, which obviously counted for something. But others were jostling behind him, and if he put down the knife, someone else might pick it up before Chad got to it. It was either him or Chad that should have it, so he decided.

  He slipped the knife into his pants' pocket and ran out of the room as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran into his cubicle and flung himself down on the bed, letting huge, aching sobs come from him. Hunter is dead. Hunter is dead. Hunter is dead. His mind kept repeating the same thing over and over again and he pressed his hands again the sides of his head, trying to rend the message from his mind. It didn't work.

  When he had cried for a few moments, he sat up as a new thought hit him. They had done this. The queen – the old one and the new – the Warrior Women, the people who ran this facility, and every other one, the leaders of the world... They all had done this. They all would pay. How, he wasn't sure, but he was determined to revenge Hunter's, and all the other boy's who had died deaths before he grew much older. He pulled out Hunter's knife again and sat for a long time, just holding and staring at it.

  “It is not over. I won't allow you to just give this up. I'll recover soon, and then we'll just be more careful and not talk to each other very much, and when we do talk to each other it'll be in code. I don't know what kind of code, but we'll figure it out.”

  “But I don't want them to hurt you again.”

  “They won't. I won't let them.”

  “You won't let them? How on earth are you going to prevent it? We're helpless against them.”

  “Defensive Arts.”

  But in the end, what good had Defensive Arts done him? Done any of them? He felt tears stinging his eyes again and blinked them furiously away. Now was not the time for tears, or weakness, or anything that might deviate him from his chosen path. He doubted there would ever come a time for that again. “I'll fight for you,” he vowed over Hunter's knife.

  :::::

  It was the graduation ceremony. Nathan stood with all the other trainers, just as Hunter had stood at almost the exact spot during his graduation ceremony. Of course, Nathan hadn't even known Hunter then, but being put on the podium had gotten him noticed, which had led to their friendship. Their brotherhood. Nathan shook his head, determined once again to not let old memories intrude and weaken his resolve. How young and naive he'd been back then. Both of them. But all that was over now. Hunter was dead, and Nathan's eyes had been opened to the real world.

  It was not a pretty sight.

  He had a plan. It wasn't much, but it could work. He would have to do it at the critical part in the ceremony, so that the resolve and authority of the leaders would be weakened and, hopefully, the boys would be awakened out of their dull apathy. He felt a huge rush of nervousness and adrenaline fill him, but mostly nervousness. He had never wanted it to come this far, and he hated speaking in public. But, he reminded himself, this would not be speaking. It would be shouting, yelling, and screaming to avenge Hunter's death. The thought gave him a modicum of relaxation.

  The moment was almost here.

  Just as the first boy was about to take the oath that would bind him even more fully to the facility, Nathan pushed his way through the crowd as quickly as possible and jumped onto the podium. He wrenched the microphone away from the leader's hands and shouted into it.

  “You have been lied to!” His somewhat prepared speech started spilling out of him, straight and true. “Those young men never had a chance! They were doomed from the very start.” He took a deep breath, for what he was about to say next would be hard. It would dredge up old memories that he preferred to keep hidden. “And this facility is not what you think it is. It's not,” he repeated for emphasis. Murmurs filled the hall. He didn't dare look behind him to see how the leaders were taking this unexpected development. He'd keep speaking for as long as he was able.

  “Do you know what happens to the little children – the babies, even – that are brought here? They-” A stunning blow fell on the back of his head, and he passed out from the shock and pain of it. He remembered nothing else.

  When Nathan woke up, it was a start and a shock. He was in the very same room that he had came across about six years ago. The control room. He shuddered and tried to get up, then realized th
at he was tied to the bench he was laying on. There were two others in the room. The leader of the facility, and one other who he thought might be Laii, but wasn't certain.

  “My, my, that was a surprise, wasn't it?” the leader said her voice somewhat mocking, but with an undercurrent of anger. Nathan wasn't sure if she was talking to him or the other woman. He chose to remain silent. His head hurt so badly, he wasn't sure if talking would be good for it or not.

  The other woman made a noncommittal sound. It was Laii.

  “We've known you've seen this room before,” the leader said, obviously to Nathan this time. “And one other, I believe.” She seemed to be expecting an answer, so Nathan nodded and immediately wished he hadn't. The nod sent his head spinning and buzzing as though a swarm of bees were inside, trying to get out and stinging in the process.

  “Hurts, doesn't it?”

  “Yes,” he answered, not wanting to risk another nod. It only hurt a little less than the nod, at any rate.

  She nodded, as if satisfied. “You're a difficult case,” she commented. “No one else we've ever had has been like you. Of course, it's not surprising, considering-” She paused.

  “Considering what?” Nathan said.

  “Oh...nothing. Now,” she said, her tone becoming businesslike, “we have to figure out what to do with you. Any suggestions, Laii?”

  Laii shook her head. “May I be excused?”

  “Fine, fine.”

  Nathan was surprised she would want to leave, but she did anyway. That left only him and the leader. The thought was not pleasant.

  “Now, can you give any explanation for your behaviour?” the woman asked, taking Nathan's gaze away from the door Laii had just disappeared through and returning it to herself. He had the feeling she liked to always have attention directed toward herself. Right now her tone was that of a indulgent, but disappointed parent who couldn't understand why her darling child had disappointed her. Nathan hated that. He would have much preferred her to shout and scream and threaten. Then, at least, he'd know where things stood. But now he didn't know if she was angry, or truly as calm and cool as she made herself out to be.