The Sun Guardian

by T. S. Cleveland

  But the man was a beast of aggression, wild and snarling. At Scorch’s lifted hand, he growled and began inching slowly across the center of the circle.

  Scorch shook his head, droplets of water flying free from the tips of his hair. “No. You don’t have to,” he pleaded, but his words were pounded out by the rowdiness of the crowd and a clap of thunder. The man continued pacing toward him, one wavering step at a time. The closer he came, the younger he began to look. Scorch had seen twenty years, hardly seasoned, but the man approaching him with clenched teeth was not a man at all. He was smooth-cheeked, scrawny-limbed, petrified, and looked no older than the flautist. And he was gaining ground across the circle, so close now that Scorch could hear his ragged breaths over the cacophonous onlookers and relentless storm.

  “Wait,” Scorch tried again. His voice sounded strange in his ears, like he was talking in a dream, everything about the moment an unreality. “Wait.”

  The boy did not wait. He swung his staff with a scream and finished the distance between them.

  Scorch stumbled back as the boy collided into him, their chests slamming together.

  “Stop!” he yelled, desperate, but the boy was clutching his staff with both hands and beating at Scorch’s side.

  Scorch let the boy shove him backward until he was pressed up against the wires of the circle wall. The boy tried slamming the blunt end of the staff under Scorch’s chin, but Scorch grabbed his wrists, dropping his own staff in the mud at their feet. He held the boy with both hands, shaking him until he dropped the weapon. The boy was crying, his eyes huge and unseeing. As he writhed, Scorch kept him firm in his grip.

  “Don’t fight me,” Scorch begged. “I won’t hurt you.”

  The boy threw himself forward and kicked his legs, the toes of his boots connecting with Scorch’s shins so hard he fell to his knees. He let go of the boy’s wrists for one second and that was all it took for the boy to pin Scorch on his back and straddle his waist.

  Scorch cried out as the boy clawed at his face. A sharp nail snagged on his skin and dragged a bloody scrape from his temple to his jaw.

  “Please!” gasped Scorch, slapping at the hands that were now gathering around his neck.

  But the boy was mad and no words would reach him. His fingers tightened around Scorch’s throat and began to crush with all his strength. It was a strong grip, but Scorch was stronger, and he pried the boy’s fingers off and flipped their positions. Now the boy’s back was in the mud and Scorch was pressed down on top of him. New puddles were forming all around their struggle as the rain turned torrential, every drop feeling like ice against Scorch’s hot skin. The boy lifted a knee to try and displace him, but Scorch could not be displaced. He held the boy’s wrists until they flailed with such abandon that the boy let out a cry. Fearing he’d wrecked the boy’s wrists, Scorch reflexively released them.

  “I’m sorry,” Scorch said, speaking loudly over the rain.

  The boy had grown still beneath him, his hands dropping to his sides. Scorch smiled softly down at him.

  “Yes,” he sighed. “Good. See, they can’t make us. They can’t make us.”

  The crowd was booing and throwing rocks over the walls, and Scorch watched one sail far to his left. He laughed, a brief moment of levity before a sharp pain exploded in his thigh. He felt a tremendous, searing pressure and looked down to where the boy had stabbed him with a small blade.

  Scorch cursed and dismounted his attacker, his hands sinking into pits of wet earth, but the boy followed, leaping to a crouch and wrapping a quick fist around the knife’s handle. He pulled it free of Scorch’s leg and brought it down again, aiming for his chest. Scorch blocked, but he was too slow, and the blade still went in, stabbing into his shoulder. Heat blossomed in his chest, and he grabbed the boy, giving him a shake before throwing him off. The audience’s response was deafening, but Scorch could only hear the rushing in his ears, the thump of his blood racing through his veins. When the boy landed in a puddle, Scorch pulled the knife from his shoulder. It wasn’t as deep a wound as it could have been if the boy had known how to fight at all, but it was enough to make his shoulder vibrate with pain. He cast a glance at the boy, who was already hastening back to his hands and knees.

  Without bothering to fully stand, the boy launched himself on top of Scorch, his dirty fingernails digging into the skin of Scorch’s neck as he rolled them. They stopped with Scorch’s head in a dip of the ground, filled with mud and water, and the boy didn’t hesitate to push down on Scorch’s neck until his face was submerged in the muck.

  Caught off guard. Why was Scorch always caught off guard? When he was plunged into the depth of the puddle, he gasped, and as easily as that, he was drowning. Panic shot through his system and he thrashed against the boy pinning him down, but couldn’t throw him off, couldn’t make his hands uncurl around his throat, couldn’t lift his head the inch it needed to gulp fresh air. His vision was blackened and fuzzy, his lungs were sloshing with grime, and his hands were balling into desperate fists.

  As the thunder rumbled, Scorch felt the smooth handle in his hand burning hot against his palm. Instinct drove his forearm up in a lethal curve. Adrenaline filled his tired muscles with strength and ignored the burning pain in his shoulder. Skill directed his aim when he sank the knife’s blade into the boy’s neck.

  The hands around his throat slackened at once, and Scorch surged up, shoving the boy off and crawling away from the puddle as he hacked and heaved and struggled for breath. Dark fluid dripped from his mouth and Scorch wiped it away. He leaned back on his knees and lifted his face to the rain, inhaling slowly, easing the heat of his skin, and tucking it deep.

  The spectators were yelling and rattling the walls with grubby, coin-clenching fists. Scorch spied one of the doors creaking open, masked men stepping through. Confused, he turned his head. Several feet away, sprawled in the mud, was the boy, the knife still lodged in his neck. Blood was sprayed all around him where Scorch had stabbed into his artery. Remnants of life oozed around the handle. He was dead.

  Scorch stared at the body until hands grasped his arms. He let the masked men boss him to his feet, feeling once again like he was dreaming. The rain had washed away the bulk of Flora’s dried blood, but now he was dirty with another’s. It was nothing like he’d been trained for, nothing like he’d expected. He felt numb. It had happened so fast, been so easy. It shouldn’t be so easy.

  The crowd raged, their voices a sickening medley, and Scorch was glad when he was led back inside and the door shut behind him, blocking out all sound save the in and out of his breathing. He remained in a dissociative daze as the men herded him back to the dungeon, walking with his eyes trained to the floor until they were approaching the cage room, and then Ebbins appeared in front of him.

  Scorch blinked. Ebbins poked a finger into the rope burns around Scorch’s neck, a sleazy smile stretching his lips.

  “Atta boy,” he said, and Scorch’s stomach rolled violently. Ebbins whispered in his ear. “Did you like the present I slipped in there for you?”

  Scorch didn’t understand until Ebbins made a rude gesture with his fist, a stabbing motion against his own neck. His teeth gleamed sharp in the pit of his smile. He had slipped the boy the knife.

  Ebbins’ laugh was too loud in the narrow hall, bouncing an ugly echo off the walls. Scorch felt sick as the masked men poked at his back with their swords and urged him onward. He was relieved to leave Ebbins in the hall until he realized the man was following their little procession. Scorch risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Ebbins strutting behind him, his two cronies from the tavern following with a limp body dragging between them.

  The masked man with a fist in Scorch’s hair gave his head a jerk and directed his eyes forward. Seconds later, he was being pushed back into the room full of cages. He could feel every eye on him but didn’t have the strength to meet anyone’s gaze, not even Kio’s, whom he knew was watching calmly with her legs folded up beneath her. Instead,
Scorch craned his neck to catch another look at Ebbins’ new capture. He saw a shock of black hair before the masked men tore open Kio’s cage and shoved Scorch inside, hurriedly locking the door.

  Scorch was smashed up against Kio, and he quickly began disentangling himself from her stoic limbs. She tried to cup his cheek with her hand, but he shook his head from her gentle touch and pushed himself as far to the other side of the cage as he could. He didn’t want her sympathy or advice or whatever it was she was about to offer him. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared out at an empty cage across the room, where Ebbins’ men were tossing the unconscious body of their newest victim. Scorch wondered where the empty cage had come from, until he realized it must have been where the boy had been. The boy he had killed.

  Scorch coughed, still bringing up flecks of mud from his lungs, and stared at the new body in the cage. He wished he could be unconscious, and then he could ignore the weight of Kio’s eyes on his back. Without facing her, he spoke.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before.” It was barely a whisper, but it stung his eyes.

  When Kio responded, her voice was equally soft. “You’re a guardian.”

  He tensed at the title. He felt like a dirty thing. A murderer. An assassin. The thought jarred his brain and his Master’s task surfaced like blood in the water. He’d let his guardianship sneak to the back of his consciousness since Ebbins had taken him. In the wake of his own trauma, he’d ignored his duty. Master McClintock had trusted Scorch with a sacred task and within twelve hours of leaving the Guild, he’d proven himself unworthy. If Scorch was a guardian, he was truly the worst the Guild had ever produced.

  The shame of it was nearly enough to cloak the guilt of the boy’s death, but not quite. Now, when Scorch shut his eyes, he saw more than a blood soaked bed and a mangled neck. He saw a dead-limbed boy twisted in the mud.

  “We do what we have to do,” said Kio after a pause. “We have no choice.”

  Scorch stared across the room at dark hair glimpsed through a wire cage. “I had a choice. I chose to save myself.”

  “Isn’t that normal?”

  Finally, Scorch looked at her. The burn on her cheekbone was blistered and pink, and her eyes were as sharp as ever, even in the dim light of the dungeon.

  “Being a guardian isn’t about killing. It’s about protecting. That boy needed my protection and I—I killed him.”

  Again, Kio reached out and Scorch didn’t stop her. She touched his hand. “You needed protection too, Scorch.”

  It was the first time someone had used his name since he’d left the Guild and he felt oddly disconnected from it, like it no longer belonged to him. He sat in silence for a long time, letting Kio tear strips from her cloth tunic and wrap the stab wounds at his shoulder and thigh. The gash down his face she dabbed with her sleeve. Masked men returned to the room and placed a bowl of water in each cage, along with hardened half loaves of bread. Kio tore the bread in two and made Scorch eat, but only after he had his fill of water.

  After, Scorch grew dizzy and Kio settled him onto his side, keeping his head in her lap. Fatigue gripped him tight and soon he would be asleep. Before nightmares could claim him, Scorch’s fingers fell closed around Kio’s wrist.

  “I won’t do it again,” he promised. “They can’t make me do it again.”

  Aren’t You Killing Me?

  4

  He slept for hours, a miraculous feat in a roomful of creaking cages and hapless moans. It was impossible to tell exactly how long he slept, but it felt like a long time. His dreams had certainly stretched on and on, relentlessly hammering his mind with one horror after another.

  ****

  His mother smiled at him until the fire caught her hair, and then her features were lost to a billow of smoke.

  He started running, his feet sinking him deep in mud. When he screamed for help, water rushed into his mouth. A small hand reached for him. Flora. But when he leaned in to kiss her cheek, her head rolled back, and her neck split open. He tried to press his hands over her wounds and stop the bleeding, but ropes lashed around his neck and dragged him back.

  Ebbins placed a knife in his hand and threw him in a cage, but not with Kio. A dark-haired figure was lying there, face in shadows, a smooth exposure of neck shimmering in moonlight. He fell to his knees beside the stranger and held the knife to his own throat instead.

  ****

  Scorch opened his eyes.

  “You had bad dreams.”

  Kio was gone and Julian was watching him with a frown on his blue and black face. Scorch uncurled from his ball on the floor and ran a hand through his hair. It was tangled and stiff with filth, and his fingers brushed against the gash scabbing on the back of his head.

  “Yeah,” he answered. Despite his portion of water, his throat felt scratched and sore.

  The other man nodded. The fear in Julian’s eyes was less, and he was no longer a trembling heap of nerves. “They came for Kio a few minutes ago,” he told Scorch, his whisper conspiratorial.

  Scorch grimaced at the idea of her in the circle. But hadn’t she confessed to him that she’d won three fights already? He was comforted by the thought that she could take care of herself, until he remembered taking care of herself meant someone else’s death, and how could he be comforted by that?

  Julian tried speaking to him a few more times, but Scorch filtered out his words. His shoulder and thigh were throbbing from his stab wounds and he was afraid to look beneath Kio’s makeshift bandages to check for festering. He missed Etheridge, wished for her pouch of salves. Knowing her, she would have included something specifically for stabs. She probably had some sagely hunch that Scorch would end up being stabbed at least once. He positioned himself so no unnecessary pressure was on his injuries, and then leaned his good shoulder against the side of the cage, looking out into the room. The same dirty faces were in the same dirty cages with two exceptions: an empty cage on the far side of the room where Kio’s current opponent had been taken and an unfamiliar set of eyes in the cage opposite Scorch’s. It was the dark-haired newcomer Ebbins had dragged in. He was awake, and he looked furious. And he was a he. Scorch hadn’t been sure when hair had been hiding his face, but it was obvious now.

  He had the fairest shade of skin Scorch had ever seen, made all the lighter by the stark contrast of black hair and clothes. He looked small in the cage, but dangerous. Even sitting there on his knees, hands resting on his thighs, the man exuded lethality. Scorch wished he was close enough to make out more details, but he didn’t need to be close to read the malice on the man’s face when their eyes met. Scorch’s cheeks heated and he turned away.

  Julian was absently tapping his fingers against the wires of his cage and Scorch concentrated on that irregular rhythm until the sound of steps began echoing through the outer hall. The masked men were already returning. He exchanged a heavy look with Julian, and then they both directed their gazes toward the door.

  The masked men stormed in, hauling a cooperative Kio behind them. Scorch had never seen her stand upright before, all stretched out. She was taller than he’d assumed, and her hips less narrow, but his idea of her gracefulness had been accurate. She slinked across the room, and when the men brought her to the cage, she bent down and crawled inside before they could shove her, and then she closed the door herself. The masked men grunted and locked the cage, then filed from the chamber without a second glance. When they’d cleared from the room, the relief was tangible. They weren’t taking anyone else. Not yet.

  Julian was the first to speak when they were gone, pressing his face against the side of the cage to get a good look at Kio.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Kio smiled, a small thing that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m okay.”

  Her chin had a smear of blood across it, but she wasn’t as muddy as Scorch had been. The sun must have come out and dried the grounds. She wiped at her face with her sleeve. Scorch couldn’t help but stare at her, raking h
is eyes across her body in a search of injury, any injury. The only marring of her skin was the burn on her cheek.

  “I’m okay,” she repeated.

  He wanted to ask her how. She was so gentle. How did she walk away with nothing but a streak of someone else’s blood on her chin? But he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to hear how she killed another person, no more than she probably wanted to tell him. So he just nodded, hoping it conveyed his gladness that she was still alive, and scooted the inch over to the other corner of the cage.

  Kio whispered with Julian, but Scorch fazed them out, not wanting to listen. Somehow, his eyes found their way back to the strange man in the cage across the room. He was glowering at his untouched bowl of water, his arms folded across his chest, and Scorch took the opportunity to drink his fill of the curious image. The man was clearly attired in some form of armor, but it was nothing like Scorch had seen at the Guild. It was black and sleek, but the material was impossible to pinpoint from Scorch’s distance. It fit snugly against the man’s body, covering high on his neck and down his arms. The only skin exposed was on his face and hands, white as the moon blossoms in Etheridge’s garden.

  Scorch passed an indeterminate amount of time watching the man exist within the cage, sneaking looks when he thought he wouldn’t get caught. At one point, the man nudged the bowl of water with the tip of his boot. He picked it up, held it to his nose, and sniffed. Dark eyebrows cinched together, eyes closed. Then he took a tentative sip. He set the bowl down after that, but half an hour later, he returned to it and drank the rest of the water. Finished, he licked his lips and examined the empty bowl, smashing it against the floor several times to test its breakability. It didn’t break, and the man returned to posing on his knees, his eyes surveying the dungeon.