Killers, Traitors, & Runaways

by Lucas Paynter

  “Gentlemen?”

  “This your place, sir?” one asked.

  “Just passing through,” he replied, reaching out to shake hands. “Flynn Carolina. What can I do for you?”

  “Looking for a soldier, didn’t show up for port this morn,” the other replied. “Private Alicea Bagwell. Got reports from her comrades that she fancied coming ’round here. Hoped we might catch her.”

  “Is she in trouble?” Flynn asked.

  “Er, momentarily, no,” the first man replied. “’Course, depends on how she takes our approach. Turns out she was just late, well, already missed her ride to Bheln. Have to pair her with the 9th and go in south through the Hebre Sea. Messier patch, that, but she survives and gets back to the 13th, no harm I suppose.”

  “And if she resists?”

  “Imprisonment, to start. Tried for dereliction, could be treason. Point being, have you seen her?”

  Flynn smiled cheerfully. “Actually, I have. I was with her all day yesterday, straight through the night. We went for drinks and had a roll in the sack before I sent her on her way.”

  Something crashed in the manor. Flynn resisted the urge to wince, but knew Jean had been eavesdropping, and that his ‘admission’ had startled her.

  “Who’s there?” one of the soldiers immediately demanded as he reached for his pistol.

  “Just a friend of mine,” Flynn commented dismissively. “Have a look.”

  “You any idea where she’d be now?” the other soldier asked.

  “We walked the south fields for a spell,” he lied, adding, “There was an old tree with a large rock beside it. Her idea, said it was a favored place. Try there.”

  By this time, the first soldier had met with Jean, who gave a terse, “Yo.” He said, “Sorry, ma’am,” and backed out, before exchanging a few whispers with his partner. They thanked Flynn and went on their way. He watched in silence as they vanished on the horizon.

  “You really got laid last night?” Jean chuckled.

  “Oh, if only my life were that simple.” They waited another moment to be sure the soldiers were gone. “We need to get moving.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” She scrambled to pull her jacket on. “Where the fuck did you send those guys? You and this Ali chick actually hang out at this rock-and-tree place?”

  “No, but if they look hard enough, I’m certain they’ll find one that matches my description.” Flynn tried to remain silent, but as they left the manor, he was compelled to ask, “That bonnet was your whole disguise in Selif?”

  “Yeah, what of it?” she asked.

  “Looks terrible.”

  “Fuck off.”

  * * *

  Someone was coming. Shea quavered in her burrow, for with Belsus gone, few had reason to travel the northern road. She had tried to be brave, even as her heart pounded all the way back to Selif. Her mind had throbbed from the clamor of weapons fire long since gone, her skin perspiring at the memory of fires that had blazed through the city. She had returned with time enough to spare, to sail across the world and meet those horrors again.

  They were coming closer. Just a scavenger, she prayed, reaching for her pistol. The barrel shook, and she retreated deeper into the cold mud to avoid notice, feeling it seep through her coattails.

  If it was another soldier, would she have the nerve to shoot and run? Better men and women had been taken by shots meant for her, and it meant one more would die when she didn’t deserve to live. No one’s seen me, no one’s seen me, she reminded herself again and again. She nestled deeper into the shadows and hoped they would pass by.

  “Wait here.”

  Shea’s heart froze. They had stopped outside, and one pair of footsteps was coming near. Her arms stiffened, her index finger flirting with the trigger; the shadow of a man was cast over her light. Wait. Just wait, she urged herself, her heart threatening to burst through her chest.

  “Shea.”

  The instant she heard her name, Shea’s pistol discharged. He hadn’t even come close enough to graze, and the shot flew clear past, embedding itself in the hilly soil ahead.

  “Oh, fuck,” she whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Her pistol fell from her hands and she twisted, scrambling to pull her second one free; the hammer had gotten caught on the holster strap, and as she fought to untangle it, her pursuer stepped inside the half-buried wagon she’d been hiding in.

  “It’s me.”

  “Flynn?!” she gasped in disbelief. Her shaking hands lost hold of the pistol, leaving it hanging halfway in the holster. “Shouldn’t be here.”

  He nodded in agreement. “I came back for you.”

  Shea’s whole body trembled. She reached down, found the pistol she’d discharged, and wiped the mud from it on her coat sleeve. As she returned it to its holster and straightened out its pair, Flynn asked, “Why’d you run?”

  “Why?” She almost laughed. “‘Why’ was why. Why am I fighting? What for? For some islands our lords think we ought to have? So my brothers aren’t ashamed of me? So…” Shea clutched the right breast of her coat and felt the papers inside crush in her hand. “So someone knows who I am when I die?”

  “And what happens now?” he asked. “Where do you go from here?”

  “I run. Till old and bloody gray, and even then.”

  When Flynn nodded at her confession, she thought he might leave, right then and there. Instead, he glanced back at his unseen companion and asked her to wait “just a minute,” before giving Shea his full attention once more. “Whatever happens next, you’ll be fighting for your life?”

  “Seems that way.” Her heart had steadily calmed. She could almost laugh about it. “Gone back, survived, might have seen peaceful days. That’s shot, innit?”

  Flynn considered her words, nodding in agreement. His hand flinched, and he seemed reticent to do something with it. Finally, he sighed in defeat and extended it for her to take. “I can give you something to fight for.”

  Shea didn’t want to fight at all. But the alternative was to run, deny who she was forever, and do it all alone, or among people who would never really know her. She was tired of hiding to survive and at last reached out and clasped Flynn’s hand with her own.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: True Allegiances

  The smoke pillowed softly into the dawn sky, and it guided Jean long before she could see the distant campfire it heralded. It comforted her to see their companions when they drew near enough, the four gathered around the dancing flames.

  “Been days since I … ditched,” Jean commented. “They ain’t pissed with me, are they?”

  “They’ll look past,” Shea assured. “Didn’t leave in a bind, came back ’fore things got hot. More welcome than I’d be, promise that.”

  “Chariska and Zaja worried the most,” he told her. “Poe…”

  “Still a dickhead, got it.”

  “Zella has been keeping her distance. Try not to take it personally.”

  It had been almost two days since they’d reconciled. They could have rejoined the others in one, but Trynan soldiers were scouring the countryside in search of stragglers from the Cavonish forces. They’d spent hours in hiding, Shea shaking all the while, trying to calm her nerves and repeating to herself, “Not here for me. Not here for me.”

  The sun had peeked over the western mountains by the time the three reached the campsite, and Chari was the first to run to them; she swiftly threw her arms around Jean, who stumbled back in surprise.

  “I feared never seeing you again,” Chari said.

  “Uh, hey, Chari,” Jean replied, hesitantly patting her friend’s back. “And same here, I guess. Glad yer okay.”

  Chari gave one last squeeze before disengaging, and Jean felt a mixture of relief and guilt. If she hadn’t returned, she’d have never felt this sense of appreciation, but it also meant she’d doubted the a
uthenticity of their friendships.

  “I found her back at the manor,” Flynn explained. “Should’ve gotten on my way sooner, but leaving wasn’t as easy as I thought.”

  “I’d have waited, had I known—” Chari started apologetically.

  “No sweat off my back,” Jean replied dismissively. “Job to do. I know the score. Worked out for us anyway—look what we found.”

  Shea, who’d kept aside until now, intruded and raised her hand in greeting. “’Ello, again.”

  “You’ve fallen into our ranks?” Chari asked.

  “Seems so.”

  Shea couldn’t take her eyes off Chari. She had given the same treatment to Jean during their recent journey, as though she were trying to identify all the things that made them different from her.

  “Is something the matter?” Chari asked.

  “Ah, sorry.” Shea turned red with embarrassment. “Just … really looking for the first time.”

  Chari smiled gracefully and said nothing, guiding the trio past the wagon resting on the side of the road to a small clearing in the grasses, and the campfire dancing within.

  “Mind the noise,” she requested. “Some are still at rest.”

  Zella stirred a pot of stew with tired disinterest and gave Jean a token nod, as though she’d merely returned from a morning walk. Zaja and Poe were both fast asleep, resting against a nearby tree. As they settled in, Chari looked Jean in the eyes and smiled.

  “I feared you would not return. The malice between Flynn and yourself has been sorted then?”

  Jean looked to Flynn, who offered no response, so she gave Chari an embellished shrug and said, “Kinda? Eh?”

  Chari look dismayed, but tried to put on a bright smile. “At least we’ve come together again.”

  Jean couldn’t agree more.

  * * *

  Another fourteen days passed before they reached the mountains that stood between them and the shipbuilders of Kin-Kin. While there were safe and stable paths through, Shea warned against them—such trails were frequented by Trynan soldiers venturing to and from the Inland Sea. They instead took a forgotten trail, hidden in the brush, whose steep and rugged surface overlooked a chasm of jagged stones below.

  Every step felt like a struggle to Poe. The air was thinner here, and he found himself hyperventilating within the first hours, and scorning the pitying eyes of his companions. He left his father’s blade and cloak in the wagon to lighten his load, but refused to ride in it himself, for that would have been the final admission of weakness.

  On the second day, the trail became so narrow that their wagon slipped, and Mr. Prim-Prim began bleating in terror as he fought to keep from begin dragged down with it. Poe quickly scrambled onto the outer slope and pressed his backside against the wheel to keep their supplies from crashing down. The distance to the bottom was dizzying, and if the soil gave way here, he would suffer an ignominious end.

  By the time the crisis was averted, Poe’s body was wracked with pain from the muscles he’d torn and strained, but he could do nothing for it until nightfall. When they made camp, Poe saw he was not the only one the day had taken its toll upon, and he felt contempt for their ignorant steed, whom Zella pampered as though it were the only one that had suffered.

  Zella herself glowed softly in the darkness, patting the beast as it chewed vacantly on its feed. She brings nothing to our struggle, Poe thought to himself. I could strangle her within minutes and leave her body to the slopes.

  Poe felt no hesitation in approaching, and Zella didn’t notice until he was right upon her. Poe reached out, and his hand found the ridged back of Mr. Prim-Prim and came to rest on one of its many horns.

  “You are an albatross,” he accused. “You contribute nothing to our cause, and the first sight of you from our enemies will bring hell upon us once more.”

  When she replied, it was as though she were speaking to the wind, rather than Poe himself. “What aid I provide or not is my own business. Have you forgotten, Guardian? I am here as a witness. I am not one of you.”

  “Then you should keep better distance. Even by being, you meddle in our affairs.” Poe rounded the steed and stared into Zella’s radiant eyes. They burned brightest in the dark. “A poor witness indeed. You claim independence, yet feed from our stock and barter our protection.”

  “If I pretend to be less involved, you pretend to be more than you are,” she replied, her tone soft yet accusatory. “You call them allies now, but would toss them aside the moment you become something greater.”

  “It is my divine right,” Poe hissed. “I do not cower from the role I am asked to play: I embrace it.”

  Zella smiled, amused by some unspoken joke. “We are so utterly opposed. I have harmed no one, yet millions clamor for my suicide on faith it will better their lives. You have ruined hundreds, yet my same devotees would place you on a pedestal, for you’re more useful to them alive and empowered.” She glanced back toward the campfire. “I live knowing millions wish me dead every day. Forgive that I have less love for the six who selfishly want me alive.”

  Poe wrung one of Mr. Prim-Prim’s horns in his hand. “You’ve managed to find one exception.”

  Zella nodded as she patted the creature’s head. “I find more sympathy for innocent victims of circumstance. Harbor no illusions about you or your ‘friends’: you all chose this life.”

  Poe’s blood ran hot at Zella’s contempt for him, and it took a great deal of nerve to turn away. He returned to the fire, the Bagwell girl glancing at him as he took his seat on an uncomfortable stone. “You’re a soldier, yes?” he asked. “How many have you killed?”

  Shea’s glance said she found the question rude and inappropriate, and she didn’t answer right away. She poked the fading fire with a stick, and waited until the flames found new life. “Eight.”

  Poe suppressed the urge to laugh. “As a soldier?”

  “As a soldier, twat,” she confirmed. “Already too many. Fought with mates who killed twice, three times that. Might fancy their company more?”

  Zella’s barbs still stung Poe, and for all the lives he’d taken, the shame was new and vexing. Visiting Selif had been his first peek into the repercussions of death, and he was searching for an insight that differed from his own.

  “How do you live with it?”

  “Got no choice,” she replied. “Nightmares. Fits of panic. Don’t want to die—know that much. I soldier on.” She looked Poe over, then added, “Tried to off me, our first meet. Seems you deal alright.”

  Poe felt discomfited by her observation. “Violence became the only way I knew,” he admitted. “It’s … not easy to rise above.”

  “Bad habit?” Shea asked as she plucked a cigarette from her case and stuck it near the flame. “Pisser of one to break.”

  “I’d be a better man if I did.”

  “Never sleep a decent night again, either.”

  That night, Poe dreamt of his first victim, and woke wondering if in her final moments she resented him, or appreciated the weight of his sacrifice. He drew the Dark Sword in reminiscence, admiring its oily surface in the moonlight, and felt proud for having gone so many days without killing. To hold it felt more like reward than relief.

  * * *

  It was several more days’ journey and as many hazardous bouts with the wagon, but as Shea struggled to hold up one of the wheels, it all seemed worth it. They were near the end and at the mountain’s highest point when she saw the valley of trees that stretched from the ridge’s base to the edge of the inland sea. There was a city on the coast, barely visible in the distance.

  “Yo, Ali,” Jean grunted from the other side of the wagon. “That where we’re headin’?”

  “That’s Kin-Kin,” Shea confirmed.

  Where the climb had been strenuous, the descent was tedious. The road sloped hard and they had to tra
vel in small, steady steps, guiding the wagon down all the while. By mid-morning the next day, things had finally stabilized and Shea could afford to return from real fears to imagined ones. There had been no sign of the military, but every time Shea thought she saw a person, she was terrified it was Sergeant Bodang, or another member of the 13th Division in pursuit of her.

  “There’s nothing you need fear,” Chari said consolingly. And she was right. All was peaceful, and they were alone save for the distant woodsmen who harvested material for Kin-Kin’s principal product. Everyone around her seemed comfortable and secure.

  But she didn’t feel any better, nor did her fears quiet.

  Coming to Kin-Kin meant saying goodbye to a great many things. As a little girl, Shea had been promised a visit to the city of shipbuilders, but the promised day never came. When she finally saw it for herself, the city was stouter than imagined, and disappointingly overextended. The buildings disappeared some distance before the shore, where nearly a dozen incomplete ships occupied wooden carriages, waiting for the day they could be wheeled into the waters.

  Even before they could pursue a vessel of their own, preparations had to be made. They secured temporary storage of their supplies and sold off the wagon and Mr. Prim-Prim. Zella did not take this farewell lightly, and spent some time hugging the steed before letting go.

  When they came to the shipyard to survey their options, the vessels under construction were all far too big.

  “Even were these complete, they would demand more manpower than we have to operate,” Chari observed. “I am skeptical we can even acquire a vessel, let alone the crew needed to man it.”

  “Be rough, but I could teach,” Shea said to them. “Still,” she agreed, “need one smaller.”

  Zaja was looking through the ribs and pointed at a distant vessel, docked at a coastal residence. “How about that one?” she suggested. “That one seems a little more us-sized.”

  Shea shook her head. “Query is, will the builder part?”