by P. K. Lentz
Death to the Witch-Queen!
Being a
Post-Apocalyptic Western Steampunk Space Opera
and Volume the First in
The Avenjurs of Williym Blaik and the Cyborg Qilliara Across the Ruins of Space-Time
by
P.K. Lentz
Text copyright © 2016 P.K. Lentz
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
THE COMING THING
AUTHOR'S NOTE
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One
From the moment of his capture, Williym Blaik had known he would die.
His captors had wasted little time. After spending perhaps a quarter-turn of the Wheel in a filthy cell, Blaik stood with wrists bound, surrounded by onlookers and flanked by a number of the Sheriff's black-hatted Murshals. Under his feet was a trapdoor, shortly to be opened, below which waited a short, slick slide with quite a literal dead end: the glowing surface of the Great White Wall that would instantly vaporize anything with which it came into contact.
His death would serve as lesson to the residents of Scratch, in case they had forgotten their last lesson of three or four turns prior, or the one before that. You don't steal from Her Majestrix the Witch Queen Jaxitza.
The Sheriff of Scratch, a green-skinned Warpy whose left half was withered, his right bloated, raised his best-functioning arm to call for attention. The crowd, comprised largely of humans like Blaik, who tended to be more sane and symmetrical than Warpies, if barely, fell to silence.
“Will-ayum Blay-ak—arrp!” the Sheriff announced through his lopsided mouth. “You are hereby accused and deemed guilty—aarp!—of stealing goods belonging to Her Majestrix! You are also—aarp!—a heretic!”
Anyone found guilty of anything was automatically a heretic, since defying Her Majestrix's law meant denying that she was the law.
“The sentence is—aarp!—death!”
The crowd raised a cheer that would have required considerably more heart to rate as half-hearted. The men, women, and children of Scratch had many vaporizations of late, making the current holder of the office either a very good or a very bad Sheriff, and nowhere in between.
Blaik stood scowling at the White Wall. He had had much more time than just the past quarter-turn to resign himself to death. Ever since he had first begun roaming the world from Wall to Wall stealing from the Witch-Queen and her servants, living as a drifter and an outlaw, he had known he might die at any time. Each year it bothered him less and less, since he had yet to find any town where life was worth living. They were all like Scratch, more or less. At least vaporization was a painless end, or so Blaik gathered by the briefness of previous victims' screams.
He was hardly eager to see his last sight, that of the Sheriff's putrid, bony fingers yanking the lever that opened the trapdoor. Not at all. He wished to continue living, since it was all he had ever known. But he did feel at peace with his fate, if it had to be so. Maybe there was something beyond the Wall.
Probably not, but maybe.
“In the most holy and glorious name of Her Majestrix—aarp!” the Sheriff cried, “it is my duty and most distinct pleasure to carry out—”
A high pitched whine cut short the Sheriff's pronouncement. His mismatched eyes turned upward, as did those of nearly all present, including the condemned. What they saw was a ball of bright blue fire in the perpetual pale grayness of the sky. Already quite large, it grew larger by the second. None knew what it could be, but many had enough sense to run, and that is what they began to do.
They did not get far before the blue fire struck not twenty yards from the death-slide of wood and iron from which Williym Blaik watched with curiosity. The loud whine ended in a great explosion, the ground shook, and blue sparks and sheets of sand flew high.
Of course, from the instant all eyes turned, Blaik began thinking of escape. But with hands securely tied behind his back, ankles hobbled by a short length of cord, and six Warpy Murshals around him, options were few. Still, by the time the impact came, Blaik had made the choice to hurl himself over the scaffold rail in the one direction the guards were not standing: toward the Wall.
Half a heartbeat before he moved, the Sheriff returned his attention to his 'most distinct pleasure' and yanked the lever. The trapdoor fell open.
Blaik still managed to leap, but his footing suffered and his knee struck the rail. He had been hoping to make a hard but safe landing on the sand while just avoiding the greased execution slide. Instead, he flew over the rail headfirst and thought momentarily that he had just executed himself—until, with a sudden jerk, he stopped falling and began instead to gently sway back and forth.
He looked in the direction of his feet, which was up as far as the world was concerned, and saw what had saved him: the hobble cord between his ankles had caught on a nail jutting from the wooden understructure of the death platform. Above his head, groundward, was the surface of the slide, close enough that tendrils of his long hair brushed it. All the Sheriff or any of the Murshals had to do was reach down and nudge the cord, and another heretic would meet his deserved end.
But the Sheriff and Guard did not try to achieve this, perhaps on the assumption he had already gone to his death. Instead, their eyes were on the just-finished explosion. Blaik could see the spot from which wisps of smoke now rose. The phenomenon did not seem to have killed or hurt anyone. They stopped fleeing and began drifting back for a better look. Between the beams of the execution scaffold, the dangling thief-heretic saw what they saw, heard what they heard.
“...I swear, they do it on purpose, ”a voice muttered from the smoking crater.
A moment later, a figure, just a silhouette, climbed up out of the fresh hole in the world, cocked its head left and right, raised an arm over its head, bent it and lowered it. Its form was tall and slender, vaguely feminine to match the voice, but at the same time lumpy and angular in places. Armor?
The crowd, Sheriff, and Murshals stared at the figure. Seconds later, the way it suddenly stopped moving and stood facing the scaffold suggested it was staring back.
“Oh,” it said in mild surprise. “Well, let's do this.”
It walked forward in long, smooth strides. Blaik, during this time, decided that the distraction provided by this newcomer was sufficient to allow him to work on getting to greater safety without alerting anyone to his continued existence. By contorting his body in ways he had never dreamed of attempting before finding himself hanging upside-down with hands behind his back, pushing muscles and joints to their breaking points, he managed to perch himself precariously on a timber of the scaffold, from which vantage he resumed watching.
“Stranger, identify yourself—aarp!” the Sheriff demanded.
The approaching figure moved its arms, detaching two lumps from its body and raising them in outstretched hands. The objects flashed blue, and accompanying the flashes was a burst of sound: a fast, sharp staccato.
Then screams. The crowd began to scatter anew.
“Murshals! Stop that creature—aarp!” the Sheriff commanded.
A second later there followed a choked “Aarp!” and the Sheriff of Scratch plunged down past Blaik onto the death-slide with a resounding thump, leaving a streak of red blood all the way down to the white surface of the Wall where he soundlessly vanished.
The blunt-barreled weapons at the end of either of the newcomer's thin arms continued to blaze with blue flame and emit an ultrafast drumbeat. In any direction they were aimed, screams were cut short by blood flying from holes torn in men's and women's bodies. A loud thump on the platform just above Blaik's head said a Murshal had fallen. His blood seeped between the boards and drip-dripped on Blaik's arm. Another plunged off the side, hitting the sand to lie unmoving while, the newcomer, whom Blaik felt more and more certain was indeed female, progressed steadily forward. A bolt that struck her chest bounced off and tumbled into the sand before the Murshal who had fired it from his cross-bow became next to die.
A few more thumps, a few more misshapen lumps, and the Murshals were finished.
The light and sound from the newcomer's weapons grew less frequent and more carefully chosen as targets grew fewer. But she was not killing everyone present. Some she allowed to run.
The humans, Blaik realized. With unreal efficiency, she was bringing death only to Warpies.
Just minutes after Blaik had felt sure he would die, his would-be executioners were all dead instead, along with half of those who would have stood witness. The newcomer's weapons stopped blazing. She lowered her arms and came to a halt a few paces from the scaffold. She looked at Blaik, Blaik back at her.
The skin of her fine features was a shade or two darker than any Blaik had seen, like someone standing in shadow when there was none. Her hair was also dark, with touches of blood red where the light hit it, and it was shorter than Blaik's, sweeping in a clean wave to about her collar. Her body, where it wasn't covered in shiny metal plates, seemed to be clad in some artificial skin, jet black in color.
The eyes that looked into Blaik's had irises of a color he had no word for.
She looked at him only long enough to determine he was not a Warpy. Blaik smiled in gratitude at her, but she must have missed it, for she quickly turned her head at some movement, raised an arm and sent a final burst of flame-sound into some Warpy who evidently wasn't as dead as she wished him to be.
With that, she and Blaik became the only two living beings within a wide and expanding radius of the death-slide. With a final scan of the carnage she had wrought, the newcomer returned her sleek, deadly weapons to her hips.
“Thank you!” Blaik called to her.
It won him a fresh look, not a particularly friendly one.
“You saved my life!” he said.
“Not on purpose.”
Blaik laughed. “Still.”
Jumping down from the timber on which he was perched, he stumbled onto one knee and rolled in the dust before raising himself with some difficulty and shuffling closer to her on hobbled feet. She spared him a derisive scowl while mostly ignoring him.
“What are you, some kind of witch?” Blaik asked. “A good one or a bad one?”
“Witch,” she echoed without amusement. “Cute.”
“Well, you did come down from the sky in blue fire and massacre a whole bunch of people. It's not the worst guess... Whatever you are, could you free my hands? Then I'll be out of your hair, if that's what you want.” He eyed the shiny black weapons affixed to her hips. “What are those?”
Without answering, she reached behind her back and produced a frightening-looking serrated blade that seemed too large to have been concealed where she concealed it. Choosing to assume that her purpose was to slice his bonds and not his throat, Blaik walked to within arm's reach and half turned to present his wrists.
She came close. She had no smell, this newcomer. She was clean.
Slicing his bonds, she returned the knife to its hiding place, while Blaik set to removing the hobble cord.
“So you're not a witch. Do you have a name? Mine's Blaik. Willym Blaik.”
She regarded him briefly with the same somewhat derisive look she'd worn all along, as if deciding whether he was worth her time.
“Qilliara,” she answered.
“Killy-aaa-ra...” Blaik said, and chuckled.
In a flash, her gloved hand was on his throat, squeezing so hard he could not breathe.
“I don't feel like kicking the crap out of you right now,” she said. “So I'll give you one chance to reconsider that reaction.”
Her fingers opened, releasing him. Blaik rubbed his throat, gulping air. He said when he was able, “Qilliara. Beautiful name. I'll remember it forever.”
“Not that I care, but why were they about to kill you?”
“I'm a... a...” Blaik hesitated before finishing, “—a heretic. A resistance leader, actually. Against the Witch-Queen.”
“Is that right?” Qilliara's tone said she came nowhere close to believing him. “How strong is your movement?”
“It's kind of just starting out,” Blaik confessed.
“Meaning at this moment?”
“Well, yes. If I'm honest. How'd you know?”
“I've met drifters before.” She turned her scowl from Blaik to the desert around them. “I want to eat. Can we get some food in that town?”
“You want to eat? In town? You just slaughtered one of the Witch-Queen's Sheriffs and a bunch of Murshals. With those weapons, you might not be in much danger, but you'll have a fight on your hands, and soon.”
“I know that, drifter, and I'd like to eat first. Can you help me or not?” She grunted. “Should have taken a few alive. You don't seem like one who'd know much, but have you seen this?”
She held her hand out, palm up, and in the air above it appeared the faint image of a metallic disc with a hole in the center and intricate engravings along the edges.
“No,” Blaik answered. “But it looks like treasure, meaning if anyone has it, it'll be Her Majestrix. That's the Witch-Queen, Jaxitza. How do you do that? Make that picture appear?”
The image vanished as her hand fell. “I'll ask in town.”
Whirling, she started toward the collection of dark spots in the distance which was Scratch. Her stride was quick. Before hurrying after her, Blaik armed himself with the saber of a dead Murshal.
“Where are you from, anyway?” he begged, catching up. “Why are you here? What is that ring?”
“If I answer, are you capable of shutting up for six minutes?”
“Mayb—definitely.”
While they walked, she spoke. “Where I'm from originally is not important. A dead-end hole a lot like this place. I got out. Why I'm here is to save the universe. Which is to say more important parts of it than this one. That ring is a component of the Mind Collapser, the weapon that can save it. This Bitch-Queen of yours, does she have real powers?”
“Happily, I've never seen her with my own eyes,” Blaik said. “But I've seen enough to believe she does. If she didn't, I hardly think she'd be the Witch-Queen.”
“She probably has the Piece.”
“That's what I said. So great, I can help you get it.”
“What makes you think I need any help, least of all from you and your army of none?”
“I've been all over the world. You couldn't pick a better guide.”
“I didn't pick you.”
“You want to steal something from the Witch-Queen. I've stolen lots from her.”
“Nothing of value, by the look of you.”
“I don't keep any of it, of course. It would just weigh me down.”
She frowned at him. “I know the feeling.”
“Oh, come on,” Blaik groaned. “Qilliara—hey, is there anything shorter I can call you?”
“Friends call me Qil.”
“Perfect. Qil—”
“I didn't say you could.”
“Just let me prove myself. If I can be of use, then...”
“Then what?”
“When you get the Piece and leave here, you could, maybe... take me with you.”
“Can't,” Qilliara answered without looking. “And wouldn't if I could.”
“Don't say that. Just give me a chance. I swear you won't regret it.”
“True, I won't. But you might. Drifter.”
* * *
Two
They reached the outskirts of Scratch, a haphazard collection of decrepit gray wooden buildings with sunken roofs and patched walls. It looked like a dozen desert towns near the Wall on this end of the world.
The street, really just a wide expanse of dust between one building and another, was empty when the two enemies of Her Majestrix's rule first set foot in it, but it did not long remain so. Soon every servant-at-arms of the Witch-Queen present in Scratch flooded into their path. Nine, by Blaik's quick count, were Murshals, the rest watchmen and Sheriff's deputies and the like. Most were Warpies, but more than few were humans, plenty of whom were happy to serve in exchange for the rewards it brought.
For many, power over others was its own reward.
All told, Blaik put the number of fighters in their path just shy of thirty. Surely, having been warned by those who had fled the aborted execution, they were ready for a fight.
Qilliara halted, looking unworried. Blaik stopped, too, and neither did he look worried. Why should he? Those weapons of the newcomer would cut down this batch of opponents as it had the last. He almost pitied them.
They stood there blocking the way, and Blaik stood there almost pitying them for some seconds before he glanced at Qilliara and wondered briefly why she had not yet drawn those... blasters of hers.
“Did you want to show them the Piece?” he asked.
“No,” she came back. “Go ahead. Prove yourself.”
“Prove...” Blaik echoed, numbly. “You mean...” He pointed at the wall of enemies. “Me? Alone? All of them?”
