by James Davis
He was aware of Nina and Ralph beside him, aware of their concern and Nina’s desire to feed. For a time he considered ripping her throat out with his teeth to see if it might quell the storm of his thoughts, a storm broiling with failure and hatred and longing for a life that was no longer his. But he let the storm wash over him instead. It was a long time in coming. He knew when she ordered the medpacks. He had a tracker implanted on every Wrynd with a linktag when they turned and was alerted whenever they linked. He knew he was losing too much blood and took a mental note to reward Nina for her foresight when this was over. If he didn’t kill her first.
Ralph turned the rattling semi off of SR-10 and onto SR-6 and maneuvered the truck around the fallen Wrynd who had been slaughtered by the old wizard. Lightning blasts had scorched the earth and destroyed the asphalt of the highway. Orrin sighed and stared ahead and his tattered tongue ran along his fanged teeth. He used to have beautiful teeth, he remembered. His teeth used to be very white and straight and they were his without enhancement. He looked at his bloody arms and the gruesome tattoos beneath the blood. He used to have a lot of things.
Ralph took the off ramp and the truck coasted down South Main Street to the hotel, its lights flicking on as the smoke of the forest fires swallowed the sun. It looked like there were more than a dozen fires burning on the mountains and within the city, smoke and flame was engulfing the shuttered remains of the university. The entire city might burn before the night was through, but Orrin could not bring himself to care.
There were perhaps 200 Wrynd in the parking lot, milling about aimlessly, some sleeping and some eating actual stork-ordered food while they waited for the return of their king. Orrin didn’t recognize most of them. They were the recently turned and they had flared through their first dose of ink and were now waiting for the moment when they could flare again. He was running out of time quickly. He had a few days keeping his Wrynd horde together and organized and then they would start to submit to ink withdrawal and the madness would come, the self-mutilation, the death. If he could not get more ink, there was no way to prevent it.
The marshal had allowed the shipment once, but would she send it again, or would she send her deputies to rain down destruction? He couldn’t count on the former and feared for the latter, which gave him little time to find the old man, little time to find Harley Nearwater and kill them both. After that, it no longer mattered. He would welcome his death. He had forsaken everything for duty to his Lord Judge and had betrayed Him by breaking the code he had sworn to uphold. The only thing left now was the sweetness of vengeance and then the relief of a cold death.
When Ralph parked the semi Orrin opened the door and climbed out, more unsteady on his feet than he would have believed possible. His scye hovered at his side and even it seemed unsteady, glowing not so brightly as before. Nina went to the stork and accepted the three medpacks. She handed one to Ralph, who took it with a worried glance at Orrin. She brought the second one to the Wrynd king, who wobbled on his feet and latched onto the semi door with his right hand and shook his head to clear his vision. He planted his feet and took the pack with a nod at Nina. She smiled shyly, pleased.
“Ralph.” Orrin’s voice croaked. He cleared it. “Tend to your wounds and then organize the others. I want to know who among us has experience with a weapon. Any weapon, pulse, sword, wrist rocket, it doesn’t matter to me. Gather up every weapon you can find in this hellish city and test them. If they have skill, separate them from the rest of the tribe and give them what is left of the ink. Let them flare. I want them back when they are done, ready to move.”
“Move where King Orrin?”
Orrin looked at him, his face bloody and torn, his eyes red. “Toward vengeance, wherever it may be found.” He took the medpack and walked toward the hotel, growing steadier on his feet as he went. The scye floated behind him.
In his room, Orrin dropped the medpack on the bed. He stripped out of his clothing and opened the medpack and the medical unit floated in front of him and made a quick scan of his body. It focused on the blast torn, gaping wound in his left shoulder first, using a half dozen slender metal arms to clean and suture the wound while administering a shot of medical nanobots to help with the healing process. It informed him sweetly that the muscles of his left shoulder and arm were too badly damaged to completely repair without a visit to a medprint, or he could choose to go with a synthetic replacement. Orrin nodded and told it maybe later as he went to sit on a bar stool and let the medpack finish its work.
With the severe wound sutured and the minor ones cleaned and repaired and on their way to healing the medpack returned to its case and shut down. Orrin went to the bathroom to shower, washing the blood from his battered body. Blood flowed between his arm and the powerband and he linked and unlocked it long enough to clean the blood away thoroughly. His arm beneath the band was pale white. Like death. He left the powerband off and when he was done showering tossed it on the bed beside the medpack.
He ordered new clothes and food. While he waited for them to arrive he went behind the bar and pulled out his old pack; the pack where he had hidden his scye and his sidearm, the pack that held his betrayal to the Lord Judge. He fished inside the pack and brought out the last item of betrayal to his Lord. The memory cube was an antique the size of his fist. He pushed a circle imprinted on one of its sides and a light band flashed from another. It was a simple hologram and it showed him in painstaking detail the memories and treasures of a life he had forsaken for duty. Watching the moving and still images there, the moments trapped in time seemed to be so long ago. It had been 10 years since he had been called before the Lord High Judge and asked to do his duty. His children would be almost grown now. Would they know him? Would he want them to know him?
It was an honor few could ever help to obtain, the Lord High Judge had told him. Orrin, who was Marshal Hatcher then, wished that Dedra could be there with him as the Lord High Judge honored him. He wished that Dedra was there and Boden and little Nathan, that they could see him reach the glory a lifetime of dedication and service had earned him.
Then the Lord Judge, sitting at his bench in a chamber so opulent, so glorious to behold that Orrin had to fight back tears as he walked down the sparkling, bejeweled floor to kneel before his Lord.
“I am a Marshal of the Federation, Knight of the Lord High Judge; I am the sword of justice. I do your bidding my Lord Judge.” Orrin’s voice had cracked with emotion and pride as he pledged himself to his Lord and when he looked up the beautiful Lord Judge was smiling down at him.
And then he was told what honor his service had earned him. He was to give up everything he held dear. His title, his star, his scye and his sidearm, his wife and his children, his life as he knew it was to be forfeit, and he was to become a Wrynd. Not only a Wrynd but a Wrynd King, a zombie of the Wilderness and he was to destroy with teeth and claw and fist and strength the enemies of the Federation. He was to be an instrument of the Purge and push the Federation’s people to a Hub or devour them.
The Wilderness must be purged, humanity must be protected and their rights endowed. It was the duty and the glory and the privilege of the Federation, its reason for existence. The Federation Senate and the people of the Federation would not allow the forceful relocation of citizens from the Wilderness and the Exodus was over. Those who would come to the Hubs had come already. The rest would remain in the Wilderness unless they were properly motivated. The Senate must abide by the people’s wishes, but the Lord Judge must answer to a higher authority. He must guide his people to their destiny, a destiny they were all too often oblivious of.
Humanity had all but ruined its calling, but the Federation had saved them, redeemed them and given them purpose, given them dominion over the earth and the digiverse and the potential to dominate the universe itself, in the proper time. The marshals were his servants of destiny and the Wrynd were as well. But to lead the Wrynd required men and women of great strength, great character and determina
tion, men and women who could control their emotions even as ink consumed them with hunger, swallowed them in chaos.
Marshal Trevor Orrin Hatcher bowed his knee and swore his new oath of fealty to Lord Judge Syiada and Marshal Hatcher died where he knelt and Wrynd King Orrin was born. He would take up no arms in battle except for teeth and claw and fist and strength. He would terrorize the Wilderness of the Utah Hub and drive those living there to the Hub or slay them. He would forget his wife and his children and anyone he knew as Trevor Orrin Hatcher, in any realm, universe or digiverse. He would become a zombie for the Federation, an outcast, a drug addict, a cannibal. His tribe would never number more than 200 Wrynd. His wife and his children would be cared for by the Federation like the royalty they were. He swore his oath.
But even after swearing his oath he made his first betrayal. Before the carefully planned death of Marshal Hatcher, he ordered his memory cube and stored the images of a life he had forsaken for duty. He purchased his pack and hid away the cube and his scye and his sidearm. While he felt guilty for his disobedience to the will of his Lord, he thought he deserved this much, for what he had given, he deserved some small trinkets of the life he had lived.
Before he left the Palace of the Lord Judge, he was taken to a medprint and his straight, white, beautiful teeth were transformed into daggers, his long mane of hair was shaven and the grotesque images of death and mutilation tattooed on his body. The nails of his hands and feet were lengthened and strengthened and filed into claws.
Two aircraft left from the Palace that morning, the one he flew on and the one the Link reported he flew on. The one the Link reported he flew on exploded over Panama. There were no survivors. The one he was on flew to southern Utah. As the plane hovered over the red rock of the desert, he was injected with ink and tossed out the cargo hold. St George and the Utah Hub twinkled in the distance. He killed 17 people that night on the outskirts of the Hub. He ate some of those he killed, delighting in the discovery of what parts were sweet, what parts were bitter, relishing in the joy of the flare. The next day with the flare subsiding but the memory and the hunger of it still in his mind, a stork arrived with a case of 50 vials of ink. He started his tribe that day, never letting there be more than 200 among them so as to not raise the alarm of the Federation Senate. They were a pestilence, like the Rages, but they were of no great concern.
He had crossed paths with Harley Nearwater in the 10 years since becoming Wrynd King. He was someone the neands and pilgrims in the Wilderness feared almost as much as the Wrynd, so he served his purpose. But not killing him had been a mistake.
Orrin could not tell you he was happy in this new life the Lord Judge had given him because there is no happiness among the Wrynd, only hunger and lust. He was all but insatiable in his hunger and his lust and he knew that was why Lord Judge Syiada had chosen him. But then came the day when he had linked and gone to the Utah Hub and saw Vania and the memories of the life he used to live came flooding back.
Vania looked so much like his Dedra that he thought at first it must be her. But then he realized she was younger than his Dedra had been even before he took his oath. She was young and she was powerful and she was beautiful beyond measure. He watched her and her weakling husband and children play in the park through the Link and he knew that he must have her, that he deserved her for all that he had lost in the duty of his Lord. So he sent his Daggers to gather her up and he introduced her to ink himself, so consumed by desire for her that he could barely contain himself. She had cried and begged for her life, prayed for her husband and her children, but when the ink stained her veins black she was voracious and killed all five pilgrims he had set aside for her. The next day, with the flare soothed within her, he arranged for the mobile medprint to meet them in a clearing on top of the mountain and she was tattooed and given claws and teeth and made his queen. She was not his Dedra, but in so many ways she was better.
And three weeks later she was killed by Harley Nearwater, struck down by a coward just as she was about to devour her husband and children. But looking at his memory cube of the family he once knew but who were now only foggy memories, he wondered. Vania had said her husband’s name before Harley killed her. He had screamed at her and she had stopped and said his name and Harley had used that moment to strike her down.
Orrin turned off the cube and tossed it back into the pack. She would have killed them, her husband and her children. She would have killed them and stayed with him if the drifter had not intervened.
Harley Nearwater had killed his queen and then he had been present when the old wizard had slain so many of his Wrynd. He didn’t know who the old man was, but the drifter did. The old man held power beyond anything Orrin had ever seen, but he would kill him. He had taken up weapons to make sure it was so. He had broken his oath to make it so.
The clothes came and the food and Orrin dressed and ate and thought of vengeance and Lord Judge Syiada, whom he had betrayed. He considered for a moment seeking an audience with his Lord, to tell him about the old man and his powers and how he was protecting the drifter Harley Nearwater. Tell him about the Gray Walker the pilgrims and the neands whispered of, but he knew it would do no good. The Lord Judge and his marshals and the Wrynd Kings were nothing without their word. He had given the Lord Judge his word. His life was forfeit. But before it was forfeit he hoped the Lord Judge might allow him to have his revenge.
There was a knock at his door and Ralph opened it slowly. “King Orrin?”
Orrin stood and stretched. His arm still ached, but the medpack had done an excellent job and he felt much stronger than before. “What is it?” His voice felt like his own again. He had regained his purpose and his purpose was revenge.
“The marshal. She just landed in a wing.”
Orrin gritted his teeth and strapped on his sidearm and put on his powerband. Perhaps the Lord Judge would not allow him his vengeance, but he would take it anyway.
“Are there deputies with her?”
“No. She brings the drifter. Harley Nearwater is with her. He is wearing binders.”
Orrin’s eyebrows raised and then a slow, joyful, terrifying grin washed over his face. He roared with hatred, with anger, with triumph, spun up his scye and raced out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Wildfire
Pinnacle Peak stands defiantly, majestically among the bluffs, a tower of dirt and shale of the desert like an exposed and fractured rib of the earth itself. Jodi dropped Harley at its base as she released the wing and flipped to the ground beside him. He spun, stooping low, his right hand rushing for a sidearm that was not there and Jodi stood in front of him, her hand resting casually on her own blaster and her scye hovering beside her. The sun was being swallowed by the smoke as the fires in the mountains raged. She did not seem particularly concerned, but since she had a wing there was little reason for concern. Harley, on the other hand, felt a tad bit anxious.
He had no weapon to bring to bear and so he stood and clasped his hands in front of him, smiling softly at the young marshal.
“I liked you better in the shorts,” he offered.
She nodded. “Well, I’m on duty now.”
“And what is your duty?”
“To deal with the Wrynd, who have broken their treaty.”
“Hoped you might say that.”
“And the Gray Walker and the old man.”
“Still wouldn’t advise it.”
She narrowed her gaze. “And you, Harley Nearwater.”
Harley sighed. “I kinda thought that might be on the agenda when you scooped me up like that. Never been swept off my feet by a beautiful woman before marshal.”
“Stow it Harley.”
“Don’t suppose you would give me a weapon, make this an honorable fight?”
“Don’t suppose.” She pulled a pair of binders from her belt loop and tossed them at Harley’s feet. “Put those on.”
Harley considered saying no and forcing her hand, but he knew f
rom the ice in her gaze that if he forced her hand she would play it and the dance would be done. It was better to wait and see what other opportunities might present themselves than to rule them all out. He slipped on the binders and smiled a smile that looked like a grimace.
“Who are you Harley Nearwater?”
Harley squinted into the distance. Smoke was starting to waft into the valley. “Just a no-account Marshal. All I’ve ever been.”
“You sure you’re not the Gray Walker?”
Harley nodded. “Sure enough. So are you. So what’s the plan Marshal Tempest?”
Jodi stepped forward and checked the binders. She smelled like wildflowers. “There are a number of zombies down there who are very interested in your whereabouts.”
“I’d just assume not be on the Wrynd menu if it’s all the same.”
“I don’t think it will come to that.”
“Why’s that?”
Jodi shrugged and Harley grinned. “You think the Gray Walker or this mad old man is going to come storming into town to save ol’ Harley Nearwater, don’t you?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“Not going to happen. They have no interest in me.”
“So you say. But every time there’s been anything out of the ordinary happen in the Wilderness in the past few days you’ve been at the center of it. Bit of a coincidence.”
“I have a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time Marshal.”
“So you say.” Jodi called her wing and it swooped down and attached. She picked up Harley and they flew toward Price. “We’ll just see if your talent can present itself one last time.”
The flight into Price took less than two minutes and Harley tried to enjoy dangling from the mechanical arms of Jodi’s wing. It was starting to look like it would be the last flight he ever experienced. He looked up at the early evening sky and could see nothing of the Wheel. It looked like dangling from a wing over the desert might be the closest he ever got to it. It was a shame, really.
