by Kyle West
“A long time ago. With my father. Contrary to what Shara has said, there can be good hunting in the Waste, if one knows where to look.”
“We should not tarry any longer,” Shara said, with authority. “Carry on.”
Isa’s gaze was like ice, but she didn’t protest. She hefted her pack and her bow and headed off into the trees. The rest of us followed.
* * *
It wasn’t long before we left the last of the trees behind and were out onto the open, xen-covered plains. Isa was as good as her word: there was little else but the xen, which stretched without breaking until the far horizon. It was almost as if we were walking across a pink sea. At various points, thin stalks would grow from the ground, or the xen would grow slightly thicker, but other than that, there wasn’t much. A stark silence hung over the land, and besides the sharp wind biting at my ears, there was no sound.
Isa led us with a purpose that said she knew exactly where she was going, even if the only thing we had to do was go east. Shara hung behind us at a good distance, and it was hard not to feel like we were being stalked by her. I kept telling myself that if she were going to kill us, she would have done so already. For some reason, that thought didn’t bring much comfort.
By midday, there were small changes in the terrain, patches of xen that were dimmer than that which surrounded it. I thought I was imagining it at first, but the patches became bigger, even interlacing with one another at times.
“Why is it doing that?” I asked.
No one answered me, though. I guessed no one else knew the answer, either.
An hour later, the ground became spongier, giving more to our footfalls. Water squished out of the xen with every step. The land was still flat and wide, but in the distance the horizon was more gray than pink, a sign that perhaps the plains were ending and the Waste beginning.
As the sun sank in the western sky, the wind grew unexpectedly cold, cutting like a knife through my cloak.
Isa came to a stop on a wide patch of xen, an island of pink in an otherwise sea of boggy gray.
“We’ll stop here,” she said.
“No wood for a fire,” Isaru said, glumly.
“No, not here,” Isa said. “There are trees in the Waste, but they are few.”
“How do we eat, then?” I asked.
The venison had been cooked previously, but after this long, I didn’t trust it to not make us sick without being cooked again. However, Isaru had some just this morning and seemed no worse for it.
“A little further north we might possibly find trees, though that’s not a guarantee,” Isa said. “I chose this spot because it’s dry and it’s almost sundown.”
It might be too risky to move on when we had only two hours of daylight left and end up in a worse spot than we were now. Then again, eating deer jerky for dinner wasn’t too inviting, either, and we still had a lot of provisions to go through.
Behind us, Shara brooded off in the distance, seeming to not care about being left out of the conversation.
After a moment, Isaru waved her over. She came, reluctantly, while Isa visibly tensed.
“What do you think?” Isaru asked her. “Stay here, or try to find somewhere with firewood?”
“Why do you ask me?”
“You must have an opinion.”
“What is my opinion worth? If I say move on, it doesn’t change whether or not we’ll find food or firewood to the north. Isa knows these lands better than I do. Let her decide.”
Isa scowled; she didn’t like even being supported by Shara, but then again, Shara did have a point. Isa knew this place better than any of us, and it was close to sunset.
“There might be a better spot,” Isa said. “It’s just…this is where my father and I camped on our last outing up here. North, the land just gets rougher, and we’d be walking well into the night to find a good spot with plenty of firewood. It’s dangerous to travel in the Waste at night.”
“Dangerous, how?” I asked.
“Remember what I said about it shifting from bogland to drylands? Well, it does that very quickly, and you can find yourself stuck with no place to go.”
“If there’s a bog, there’s peat, right?" Isaru asked. “Perhaps we could burn that.”
“No, because none of this land was bog until recently.”
“I see your point,” Isaru said, grudgingly.
“What about xen?” Shara asked. “Can’t we burn that?”
“No,” Isaru said, firmly. “To even suggest that…”
“I’ve burned it before,” Shara said. “Assuming it’s dry and dead, it lights up like grass and burns almost as good as wood.”
“Only with dead xen,” Isaru said. “I don’t think you understand how xen works. We need it to be alive.”
“But I need fire,” Shara said. “No fire, and my dinner is spoiled for the night.” She tapped the hanging creatures from her pack to emphasize her point.
“Changed your mind, then?” Isaru asked.
Shara ignored the question. “We will find something to burn, even if it’s the xen itself. It burned during the Crusade, so why wouldn’t it burn now? I’ll cut it from the ground itself if I have to.”
Isaru’s expression darkened, but Shara seemed to be oblivious. Either that, or she just didn’t care.
“Xen isn’t for burning,” Isaru said. “And it won’t be burned on my watch.”
Truth be told, I wanted a fire, too. I wanted hot stew for dinner, and lying down on this soggy patch of xen with no fire just sounded like a bad idea.
“We need a fire,” I said. “Tonight will be cold, and if we have to travel into the night to find a good spot with firewood, we can just sleep it off through the morning. No time lost.”
“We’ll move on, then,” Isa said.
We gathered the things we set down and followed Isa north.
* * *
Isa was as good as her word. The terrain only became wetter, our feet sloshing through equal parts soaked xen and muck. The smell of decaying vegetation hung thick in the air, and insects swirled above boggy mires which grew increasingly dark with the onset of evening. Nothing grew out of the ground but low shrubs, and at times, we were up to our knees in mucky water. When this happened, we had to turn back for the more relatively dry turf, but with the failing light, it was hard to see which land was solid and which land wasn’t.
It was clear we had made a bad decision. Not only was a fire impossible, but now we were far wetter than we would have been.
“We have to go back,” Isa said.
“We’ll find a spot soon,” Shara said. Of all of us, she was the only one who didn’t seem fazed in the least by the situation. “Push on.”
No one argued against her, probably because going back would take time we didn’t have. Soon, the only light came from the stars and moon above, along with glowing patches of xen. We followed the xen since it was mostly solid, but sometimes that xen would stretch across mires we couldn’t cross – mires which were producing a thick fog that, in minutes, made it all but impossible to see.
So, we came to a stop, squatting down in a few inches of water, muck, and mud, intermixed with xen. I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt so miserable.
I passed out the jerky, and we ate like that. I was so hungry that I could almost completely ignore how horrible the meat tasted, along with how much it smelled. Even so, it turned my stomach to eat it.
“What now?” Isa asked. “How are we supposed to sleep like this?”
Her tone was indignant. Even if Shara was to blame for pressuring us to go on, I also shared some of the blame. I had been so sure there would be firewood, but in the end, everyone was paying for it.
“I know this is miserable,” Isaru said. “But morning will come. And when it comes, the fog will lift. We can find a drier spot, and maybe even some wood to burn.”
“In the Hunters,” Shara said, “our wilderness training makes this look like a vacation. Are the Seekers really so soft?”<
br />
“What did you have to do?” I asked. “It’s only three months since…”
I didn’t want to mention that three months ago, Shara and I had been best friends. That three months seemed more like three years.
“The training is only for as long as it takes for a trainee to complete it,” Shara explained. “I will say nothing of it, other than it involves us having to go into the Red Wild.”
“I thought you said Hunters couldn’t go into the Red Wild without getting killed,” I said. “That’s the reason you gave for sending us to find the Prophecy.”
“That wasn’t a lie” Shara said. “Many Hunters do die. Those who die in training are seen as unfit to be Hunters. It solves itself, really.”
“That’s terrible,” Isa said.
“The Hunters are the elite soldiers of the Covenant,” Shara said. “There is no room for the weak.”
It got quiet after that. We just sat there in the muck, among the din of insect noise and buzzing of flies. There was a rumble in the distance. The sound of thunder.
“Just when it couldn’t get any worse,” Isaru said.
“Looks as if we might have gotten wet either way,” I said. “I don’t think I could sleep like this. Even without rain.”
“I would suggest moving on, except for the fog,” Shara said. “Perhaps the rain will drive it away.”
“Not that it matters,” Isaru said. “Rain would be just as much a hindrance. All we can do is endure it, just as we have endured everything else.”
The first drops began to fall, causing me to throw my hood over my head. Of course, the raindrops were cold, and as the wind picked up and scattered the fog, the rainfall only increased. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine that I was somewhere else. Anywhere but here. Of all places, I imagined myself back in Colonia, in the heat of summer. I felt sad, because Shara was in that memory. I remembered her drawings and how talented she was.
I wondered if any of that person, my friend, was left.
I opened my eyes to see only darkness ahead. Lightning slashed the sky, shortly followed by the boom of thunder. The falling raindrops slammed against the soggy earth, ricocheting back into my face. For all of Shara’s bluster that the Hunters went through much worse in their training, I knew she couldn’t be enjoying this. I would have killed for dry weather and a hot fire. I thought of the dry spot we had left behind. Even if there had been rain there, too, it would not have been as bad as this.
It would have been easy to despair in that moment, but the Seekers also had their own form of training. You accepted your situation rather than resisting it, and it was possible to do so even under the harshest circumstances. So, I closed my eyes and focused solely on that. Acceptance. This was where I was. This was where I would be, and there was nothing I could do to change that. It wasn’t a bad thing. It simply was.
At first, the meditation didn’t work. It felt like tricking myself out of the truth, but in the end, I realized that, in time, the rain would stop. It had to.
And somehow, hours later, it did. It was late at night, and the darkness made it feel as if I was alone. I couldn’t see Isa just three feet away from me. I worried about Shara, because I couldn’t keep on an eye on her, but I could hear her breathing on my other side. I looked up to see that the clouds were parting, and could even see a few stars. With the rain now gone, it was replaced with a damp chill. It took all of my concentration to suppress the urge to shiver.
With the clouds clearing, it was time to move on. Sleep was impossible, so movement was the only option. Isaru stood first, prompting everyone else to follow his lead.
Isa took a few steps forward, peering into the darkness. “I can’t see anything up ahead.”
“I can,” Shara said.
Everyone looked at her doubtfully. It was then that I noticed her eyes, bright blue even in the darkness. I knew Aether sharpened one’s senses, but to be able to see in this darkness was unimaginable.
It also meant we had to trust Shara to not lead us astray.
She didn’t give us much choice, starting confidently into the dark. We walked long into the night, Shara leading the way. From time to time, the rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, growing fainter with each passing minute. With the departure of the rain came the return of the sounds of wildlife – mostly insects, but also frogs, and at times, sudden splashes that could only come from something large. I tried not to think what that might be.
More or less, we stayed on dry land. We were always wet, there was nothing that could be done about that.
In time, we came to a large patch of xen, an island above the surrounding mire. There, we crashed to the ground, and within moments my eyes were closed and I was lost to sleep.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
BY THE TIME I WOKE up, the day was bright. I felt the warmth of a crackling fire, which had caused me to wake up in the first place. I blinked, confused, wondering how anything could burn out here. In fact, what was burning looked like little more than dirt.
Shara had used xen after all.
Over the fire itself, the two rabbits and squirrels were roasting on spits, with Shara tending to them.
“It was already dead,” Shara said, referring to the xen.
I nodded, even if I had my doubts about that.
As for Isa, she was still asleep, as was Isaru, despite the morning sun and smell of cooking meat. With a chill, I realized all three of us had been asleep while Shara had been wide awake. And we were still alive.
I also realized that for the first time since joining up, we were sharing a fire. Or rather, we were around Shara’s fire; after all, she had been the one to make it. Isaru wouldn’t be pleased about the xen, nor Isa for that matter, who would take issue with almost anything Shara did.
For myself, though, the fire was good, even at the cost of a little xen. We needed the warmth to dry off and eat a good meal after suffering a wet, cold night.
What sleep I did get wasn’t good enough. Despite the bright sun overhead, I was groggy, and wanted nothing more than to sleep. It would be irresponsible to do so with Shara awake, however. Shara, who seemed to not be fatigued in the slightest.
Aether again, I thought.
“Tell me,” I began. Shara turned her head. “How did it all happen? The last I saw you…as yourself, I mean…it was outside your house, walking away to join the legion. How did you go from the person I knew to who you are now?”
It was a moment before Shara answered. “There are many things I can’t tell you about the Hunters’ ways. This is one of them.”
“What do you mean, you can’t tell me? You have a mouth, don’t you?”
“You know very well what I mean. We might be working together…at least for now. But it will not always be so. The Hunters have their reasons for wanting the Prophecy, and it has nothing to do with you.”
If only you knew, I thought. “That still doesn’t explain how my best friend has become my enemy. Do you still go by your old name, or do they call you something else now? Is there any part of you left?”
“She is gone. It’s all part of the training.” She paused, to again tend to the cooking meat. “I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
What pained me most was not that she didn’t have a choice, but that she didn’t seem to care, one way or the other. To her, it was just a fact. Likely, she wasn’t even capable of feeling grieved about it.
“And you do it for Aether?”
She seemed to consider. “In a way. Aether reinforces the training. Without Aether, I will go mad and die. With it, I can at least stay alive, but it also means my thoughts and actions can’t go against the will of the Hunters.”
“Are all Hunters like you? Is Valance? Who controls him?”
“It’s not so simple,” Shara said. “But your curiosity is understandable. I’m not a clockwork creature. I still think and reason. But certain things are barred to me. For example, I can’t feel sad anymore. Or afraid. And I feel strong as hell all the
time. This attitude gets a lot of Hunters killed in dangerous situations, but it’s useful, too. It’s important to stay smart. That’s part of the reason why I was the only to survive that Forest, back when Valance ordered the expedition here. The training has a way of erasing everything that used to matter to you.” She shrugged. “But that doesn’t bother me. I’m glad to do what I’m supposed to, and to earn my keep at the end of the day.”
Besides money, I was sure she was also referring to Aether.
“What about your mother?” I asked. “What about your art?”
She twisted one of the spits of cooking meat, almost violently. Was there something there, then?
“All gone,” she said, coldly. “They used to matter, of course. I can even remember what it was like. I just…can’t be brought to care.”
If Naomi ever heard that, she would be heartbroken. Then again, if Shara didn’t care, I didn’t know if she even recognized that.
“There’s no anger at what they’ve done to you?”
“None. I enjoy feeling this powerful. I can stand more pain and heal faster than other people too. Of course, I can sense Elekai and those with the potential to connect with the Xenofold. That’s how I was found, anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m only telling you because you might have guessed this already. We’re not like you, we Hunters. The day you were born, you would have always manifested: to be able to touch the Xenofold. This is what an Elekai is, in the classic sense. Then, there are those who that will never happen to, but a spark is still there, if only blocked.” She nodded toward Isa. “She’s like that. A lot of Elekai these days are. It comes from a weakening of the bloodline, where there’s only a little bit of potential left. It’s snuffed out in most people these days, and in Colonia, that is even truer.”
“You know about the Fading then.”
Shara nodded. “We know a lot about the Elekai. More than you would guess. It’s our job.”
I tried to ignore how unsettling that was, instead pressing on. “Hunters are people who can be trained, then. In another life…you might have ended up in the Sanctum rather than with the Hunters.”
