Destinata (Valguard)

by Nicole Daffurn

  The sight that greeted her heading back into the square was shocking to say the least, there were hundreds dead already, she couldn’t tell the Valguard bodies from the human, she could only hope that at least some of the Valguard had gone down in the fight for the town.

  All around her the fighting continued, the wounded desperately trying to get somewhere safe. The Valguard had rid themselves of the sunglasses that had always adorned their face so at least if she couldn’t tell the dead apart she could still tell the living apart. Not that it would have been so hard even if they had kept their sunglasses on but now their eyes were like brightly shining beacons calling her to them. She ran forward, reaching to her left side where she had one of the beautifully intricate swords that had previously hung on Zane’s basement wall strapped in at the top and bottom. She released the top strap at her thigh as she ran, freeing the sword in one swift movement and bringing it down to meet the blade of a Valguard that she didn’t recognize. In their training sessions they had found that Charlie was a natural with a sword in her hand and it wasn’t long before she had mastered the blade just as it didn’t take long to run the Valguard through with the glistening length of steel. It wasn’t a fatal blow but he wouldn’t getting up for a while. Freeing the knife from her right side once again she felt it tear through muscle cartilage and bone before piercing his heart. She watched as he coughed up a mouthful of blood, took one last breath and the light disappeared from his eyes. Sure that this moment would come back to haunt her many times over she moved on before she could think about it too much and went in search of her friends.

  She found Zane only a few meters away, fighting one of the elder Valguard. He was having a hard time of it and she could see that his face was bloodied and bruised. Fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over she charged forward and drove her sword through the Valguard’s back, the tip stopping just before it reached Zane’s own chest.

  While the Valguard who Charlie recognized as Hamish from the fruit and vegetable shop flailed his arms behind him trying to reach the sword to remove it, Zane grabbed her by the arm and started to drag her away.

  “Zane! Let go! What are you doing?”

  “We need to get you out of here Charlie. It’s a blood bath.”

  “I can see that, so why are we running away? Ford and El’ and Matt and everyone in town is in there, we need to help them.”

  “No, we need to hide you. You’re the only one who can stop this, you can’t get killed.”

  “No! I said I would protect them.”

  “Charlie, they’re all scattering, either back to their homes or to find somewhere to hide for the night. It may have only just started but everyone is exhausted already. Even the Valguard are running but I don’t think for a minute that this is over. They are letting the humans regroup and become content before they move in on them again.”

  “How do you know that Zane?”

  “Because I am a Valguard. I know how they think and you would too if you were to allow your Valguard blood to take over.”

  There was no way in hell Charlie would ever let that happen consciously. She knew that it was happening anyway but it wasn’t by choice. She had no idea whether one day it would take over completely and she would become just as cold as they were but she would fight to the end and she found solace in the fact that Zane was a full Valguard and he was still good.

  Looking around her now as she was being dragged away from the fighting she could see that he had been right. People and Valguard alike were scattering like mice. Most were terrified and bloodied and wounded but still able to run. She thought of all the poor children that had been quickly shuffled into Town Hall when their parents had realized what was going on. How many of those children wouldn’t have parents coming to collect them tonight? She stopped the thought short knowing that this would be the one thing amongst many others that would break her and she couldn’t break, not now.

  She must have blocked out everything but the sound of her shoes on the pavement as she ran because the next thing she knew she was sitting in the old, warn lounge chair that had belonged to Kara.

  “Why are we here? Shouldn’t we be at home?”

  “Home definitely isn’t safe. They don’t even know this place exists. If they did, Kara probably would have been dead years ago. They didn’t like the fact that she had the gift of foresight, she knew what they were but being blind and old they never really worried about her too much. That isn’t to say they wouldn’t have killed her if they had found her though.”

  Charlie put her head in her hands, covering her eyes to block Zane’s view of the tears that had started rolling at the mention of Kara’s name. She hadn’t done much fighting tonight but the excitement of the day and the small amount of fighting that she had partaken in had taken its toll on her mind.

  “I’m so tired but how can I sleep not knowing whether Ford and El’ and Matt got back safely and hopefully had the sense to move into the shelter? How can I sleep when there are still people dying out there?”

  Zane took Charlie’s hands away from her face and placed a finger under her chin, gently tilting her head back so her eyes were in line with his.

  “There was almost no one left in the square by the time we were out, they’re going to be fine. And Ford is smart enough to get them to safety ok?”

  “The ones who are dead aren’t ‘out’ Zane, their dead and it’s my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault! You said it yourself, this day was coming anyway. Eventually people would have figured it out and it would have started anyway.”

  “Yea but they could have had years or…”

  “Or months, or weeks, or days. The fact is, it’s happening now and all we can do is try to stop it before it gets too far. But we’ll talk about that in the morning, for now you need to sleep.”

  She followed him warily to a small bedroom at the back of the cottage that was the only room in the place that wasn’t filled with Kara’s clutter.

  “Yours?”

  “Yea. Kara set it up for me when I first came to town.”

  Stripping to her underwear Charlie crawled into the queen sized bed beside Zane but sleep didn’t come easily. It was early morning before Charlie settled with her head on his chest, her mind still full of guilty thoughts and what if’s. She vaguely remembered a soft kiss on her forehead as she drifted off but even that couldn’t keep the nightmares away.

  She woke up a couple of hours later screaming and tangled in the bed sheets. Her body sweating profusely and hands shaking, she gasped for air, desperately seeking some place to hide from the terrors that had plagued her dreams. Jumping at the touch of Zane’s hand on her arm, she turned ready to punch before realizing she was safe.

  “It’s ok. You’re here with me, no one will hurt you here.”

  Relaxing and realizing that she had made a complete fool of herself at the same time, she ran from the room to look for the bathroom. She stripped off as quickly as possible and ran the warm water over her head trying to forget the images that seemed to be permanently burned into her mind. Her mother’s blue face in the dirty tunnel of Town Hall, Ford’s unseeing eyes, his body sprawled out in the middle of the square, El’s beautiful red hair matted with blood, lying beside her brother and still clasping hands with Matt who was laid protectively over the top of her. The worst image of all though and the one that was on repeat was the light slowly fading from Zane’s eyes as his bloodied hands clutched her face, a sword – her sword – protruding from his chest.

  Opening her eyes after washing her hair she was shocked to find Zane standing beside her in the shower dripping wet and as naked as she was.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t leave you alone.”

  His presence in the shower though a shock was welcomed and without a thought for the fact that they were both completely nude she grabbed him in a vice like hug and didn’t let him go. They escaped the confines of the shower when both their hands and feet were considerably shriveled and the
hot water had started to run out, it was nice while it lasted but they had to return to reality at some stage.

  Putting her underwear back on, she slipped back into the bed once again resting her head on Zane’s chest.

  “I’m sorry… about the shower. I shouldn’t have held you like that after how much I’ve hurt you.”

  “Don’t be sorry Charlie. I’m not. And besides, it was me that climbed in with you remember?”

  They didn’t say another word and this time although her mind was still reeling from the nightmares, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep, wondering whether tomorrow would be much the same as today or whether Zane had other ideas.

  Charlie wished that she could pause that precious moment between sleep and waking where there was not a care in the world, where no one had been hurt and her thoughts hadn’t had a chance to catch up with her yet, instead it dragged out with every single scene from the night before including her nightmares replaying in her head over and over again until she couldn’t stand it anymore and she woke Zane.

  The morning was bright, the birds sang outside the windows and they could hear the constant scurrying of small forest creatures running around outdoors. The perfect day. For what though? Would there be more killing today? Talking? Fighting? Hiding?

  “Morning.”

  “Hey. What’s the plan?”

  “Firstly Breakfast. And then we’ll talk about it.”

  Breakfast was agonizingly slow, or so it felt anyway. Zane pottered around the cluttered kitchen while Charlie waited patiently on the stool at the counter to be served breakfast for the second day in a row and thought that if circumstances were different she could really get used to this treatment. The normalcy of being served breakfast was what appealed to Charlie, not the fact that it was Zane handing her the petite bowl of cereal or the fact that besides the sounds of the animals all was quiet outside and one could assume that right now the Valguard weren’t planning on the best way to kill her, the only thing that appealed to Charlie was that it was just a very normal part of life and right now she needed a little morning normality.

  After breakfast she was the first to speak, she could see that Zane didn’t want to be the first to disturb the quiet, serene morning they’d had and he certainly wasn’t going to be the first to make the emotions of the night before come flooding back into her mind. What he didn’t know though was that those images hadn’t left her, not even once since waking.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We bring them down.”

  “Yea but how? They are so willing to fight to the death. We are so willing to fight. How do we stop both parties from wiping each other out and destroying the town?”

  They knew that both races had to survive or they would tear the whole world apart trying to kill each other off. At first it had seemed more than senseless to have to start a war to end it, but no amount of talking would have convinced the Valguard to relinquish their control over the town. They have settled here and become complacent among the humans over the years but that didn’t change much. Only that they were content in their role of ‘rulers’ over the humans. Any talk of rebellion would have seen each and every person in town in an early grave. At least this way some of the town may survive and one day be able to rebuild without having their actions and thoughts and feelings being dictated for them.

  Charlie answered her own question before Zane even had a chance to, she knew exactly what would bring the Valguard to their knees.

  “By making them realize just how much they need the humans alive.”

  “What do you mean? The Valguard don’t need the human’s Charlie, they never did. They only keep them around to do their bidding so that they can live better lives and feel supreme knowing that they hold the power. At first when Kara told me the reason you needed to make both sides see reason and live together to ensure the survival of both races, I didn’t doubt her for a minute but now… They don’t need human’s Charlie. As long as they win they don’t care about the survival of other races, as long as they either control or the humans die out they just don’t care.”

  “Yes, but their hazing doesn’t work now that everyone in town knows about them, free will is just too strong. They’ve already lost their power and their cushy living style, so why are they still here? Why haven’t they moved onto some other unsuspecting town to lord over its people? Why are they still fighting for this town? Even if like you say they don’t care about future generations of Valguard, they’ve lost their power. Why aren’t they leaving or killing everyone on sight?”

  “Because they’re bloodthirsty lunatics with only half a soul?”

  “No. Because they have to be here. And for some reason when they settled here they needed the humans and probably still do. I don’t know why yet but I’m going to find out and then I’m going to make sure none of them ever step foot in Tole again.”

  Zane’s response what cut short by the howling that blasted through Charlie’s ears, the nausea creeping up on her so slowly it was like torture and the whirlwind of images that were placed into her mind.

  First a clock, like those you would see in a bank, they had both the date and the time on the face. Concentrating hard to pull the clock into focus she saw that it displayed today’s date and 14:00 showed as the time. The vision panned out giving her full view of a small dingy room, dimly lit by lanterns hanging from above. There was a small desk perched in the middle of the room and behind it… Mikal.

  “The people of town have returned to their homes or gone into hiding. We need to get them out! They will surrender or die, that is the only option. We cannot leave town nor can we live with rebels. So at 7pm we flush them out.”

  “They’ll never surrender Sir.”

  The second voice had come from behind where Charlie was able to see but his voice had a military sort of air about it, maybe a guard of some sort?

  “Then we’ll kill them all.”

  There was murmured agreement from around the room, voices coming from people that she couldn’t see as she was pulled from her vision and back to reality.

  “Charlie. Charlie?”

  “Yea?”

  “Vision?”

  “Yea. What time is it?”

  Charlie was frantically looking around for a clock amongst the disorder that was Kara’s – now Charlie’s and Zane’s – kitchen. Zane simply looked at his wrist watch, clearly more with it than Charlie was.

  “It’s just past ten why?”

  “We have to move. They’re planning to strike at seven, they’re going to have the meeting at two, we need to kill Mikal before that happens.”

  “But weren’t we going to find out why they can’t leave and…”

  “Yea, no, yea. I don’t know anymore. They’re going to ‘flush’ the town out and if they won’t surrender they’re going to kill them. They know they’re cornered now and they aren’t going to give up. The plan can still work but Mikal is going to have to die, we have no chance at all with him alive.”

  Charlie wished for a change of clothes as they walked the underground tunnels to El’ and Matt’s house where they had decided to check in before heading out to find Mikal and end his life.

  “What do you think is the reason they can’t leave?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been wracking my brains since you mentioned it but I just can’t think of a reason why they just can’t pack up and leave and take over another town.”

  “I couldn’t let them do that, you know that right?”

  “I know, I wouldn’t either but I still don’t know why they haven’t tried.”

  It only took a short few minutes to travel the almost straight line from Kara’s cottage to El’s house in town and into the shelter behind the pantry. Charlie wasn’t quite sure she was ready to face Ford just yet but she had no other choice, she needed to make sure he was ok, that they were all ok before she could even think about going after Mikal. Zane pushed open the pantry door before Charlie had half a chance to com
pose herself and was left looking extremely shell-shocked and drained when they were greeted by Ford not a half inch away from Zane’s face.

  “Oh. It’s just you.”

  The words were spat at Charlie and the hurt that resonated from them made her heart break all over again.

  “Yes, it’s us. We just came to make sure you were ok.”

  “Well we’re just dandy, thanks for stopping by. Oh and thanks for bailing on us last night too.”

  Charlie could see Zane’s fists clench in anger at Ford’s words but they relaxed when she placed her soft hand on his forearm; the gesture relaxing one male in front of her but making the other tense up. She rolled her eyes and pushed passed Zane to enter the house.

  “You know what Ford. I fought and I killed last night so this town can one day be free, just like you did so how about laying off. We’re on the same side remember?”

  Ford started to retort, no doubt with a smart remark but Zane cut him off and beating him to it.

  “The plan was always to get Charlie out safely, or don’t you remember that? You were so busy being the big man and killing as many as you could, you left her to fend for herself. I got her out of there before they could kill her and what were you doing? Running.”