Panting, half-delirious, the girl turned. Headed out into the night. This had to be stopped. These men had to be dealt with. Her town must be protected.
Everywhere her gaze touched was ruin. Blazing houses, bloodied people—her friends, her neighbors. Keshla lay across the lane, face in the dirt, blood matting her hair. Someone else lay in a boneless heap beyond that.
Pain such that Shanti had never experienced brewed, pumping out more power, unlocking hidden depths, power bubbling up, replacing the horror, giving purpose to her tears. She walked along the lane and threw her mind wide, touching everything in range. She clutched foreign minds in a death grip before blasting them with a shot of power. New screams wrenched the night. All male. Beastly, horrific, terrible screams that were filled with pain so acute that death was welcomed.
She kept walking, killing some quickly, slowly killing others. She reached the square, death in her wake. A man sat atop a horse, a smug grin plastered to his disgusting face. He watched the destruction around him with confident pride; carrying out his job with pleasure. He was the leader, and therefore, deserved a special death.
She killed everyone else off quickly, then, every mind Shanti could identify receiving a killing blast. Except for this man. She looked straight at this man, ignoring the screaming, ignoring the cries and the raging fires destroying homes. She cradled his mind like a baby dove. Then she thought of fire. A blue flame, tickling his skin with the kiss of heat. Increasing the pressure, the soft caress became a bite of razor blades. In her mind’s eye it licked between his toes before climbing up his legs and wrapping around his shins. It scraped against the back of his knees before reaching higher, brushing his fingers in a searing embrace.
His cruel smile winked out as confusion stole his countenance. He patted at his body, trying to smother the invisible flame. Not understanding the pain he couldn’t see.
She pumped more power into it.
Pain bit into him, a thousand points of contact. His patting became more pronounced. Harder. Hands slapping at his legs and chest, rubbing at his face. Terrified screams erupted from his throat before he flung himself off his frightened horse. He hit the dirt with a thud and began to roll, feeling the fire though still not able to see it.
Shanti hit him with more flame. Hotter. Licking his face. Burning his eyes. Closing his throat. Excruciating pain so intense he screamed himself hoarse. Writhing now, and free to do so. Feeling death eat away at his consciousness one pain-filled moment after the next. Dying slowly, like Chase’s mother.
Pain stabbing her heart, sorrow eating away at her heart, Shanti lost consciousness and fell.
Shanti awoke, letting the familiar nightmare evaporate like mist. She sat on the hard, brittle ground, sweeping the area with a tired gaze. As before, all she saw was dead, decaying trees dotting the landscape.
She dug in her bag one last time, looking for nourishment—a scrap, a morsel, anything. But she’d finished her water a day ago. Her food the day before that. Her empty stomach sucked the ribs into the middle of her body, trying to fill that void. Her brain thumped against the inside of her skull with dehydration.
She didn’t have long. She had to find something to eat and drink or her journey would end right here, in this crypt that used to hold a forest.
Heaving herself to her feet, she squinted into the bright sunshine. What frustrated her—when she had the ability to feel anything besides defeat—was that she had planned this route specifically for the forest that should’ve been here. For a forest that should’ve resembled the one in which she’d grown up. There should have been animals and water and life, blast it! She should have been resting and rejuvenating, using the life force of untouched lands to renew her Gift.
She was in the last leg of her journey, nearing the Great Sea, and instead of fulfilling her supposed destiny, she was knocking at death’s door.
Fat lot of good it did sending the Chosen. Chosen to waste away then fail. Chosen to carefully select a route based on outdated information and have no alternative. Chosen to let her people die slowly from starvation or quickly from defiance. Actually, either of those would have been better than the alternative.
Shanti washed those thoughts from her mind. She was too tired to feel any emotion. What was the point? What was she going to do, get really angry at herself and punch a tree? That wasn’t nearly as gratifying as punching the enemy. Plus, these trees had had it hard enough. They shed bits of charred bark like soiled feathers, dead all the way down to the root. She could usually sense life within nature, but there wasn’t a single spark of life around here.
Wasn’t that just fitting…
Half a day later she was staggering. Delirious, she had started to hallucinate, seeing strange visions flit through the dead trees. Her brain pounded so hard it felt like it was trying to rip out of the casing of her skull. Worse still, she was freezing in the hot afternoon sun. Dehydration and heat exhaustion had set in. Her body was shutting down. It was trying to save whatever it could to prolong the inevitable, but without its vital needs met, it had no choice but to keep sliding. She sunk down next to a tree to use the last of her resources to search. If there was someone close, maybe she could hold on.
Her squat turned into a tumble, shivers racking her body as the sun beat down on her bare skin. She didn’t even get a chance to open her mind before darkness consumed her.
Her last, snide thought was: Chosen my ass.
Chapter II
“WHAT IS IT?” GRACAS ASKED. He stared down at an oddly shaped bundle. Despite the rule against it, he stood with his hands in his pockets.
“A girl, I think,” Leilius commented slowly.
Both boys stood frowning down at the twiggy, brown-splotched limbs slumped against the burnt trunk. It almost looked like a skeleton had been held next to the tree on a string, and then released, falling in a cascade of bones to form a pile at the base. The frayed, dirt crusted sheet covering the pile of probably dead human needed to be incinerated to rid it of the obvious bacterial infestation.
“Kick it,” Gracas whispered. A boy just budding into manhood, Gracas was still fascinated by slugs and bugs and, apparently, slightly alien dead things.
“I’m not going to kick it! What if it is a girl? The last time I kicked a girl my dad slapped me across the room then made me do hard labor for a week. And she deserved it!” Leilius was only a year older than Gracas, but he was one step higher in the chain of command. It was a small step, but it was large enough for his chest to puff up with importance.
“It could be a Mugdock girl,” Gracas spat. “They’d be the type to just dump one of their women.”
“The skin’s too light to be Mugdock.”
“It looks brown to me.”
“That’s dirt, I think.”
“Kick it,” Gracas prodded again, leaning over to get a proper glance into the bundle of probable human and possible female.
“What if it smooshes? Commodore Sanders just had me shine my shoes. You kick it.”
Sanders stopped in mid-stride as he noticed the two cadets staring at the ground a ways away from camp. Biting back a swear, he changed course. “What’s going on?”
The boys jumped and flinched at the same time.
“N-nothing, sir,” Gracas stuttered, peeling away to the side.
Leilius, losing the arch in his back, hurriedly backed up next to Gracas. Apparently not quite sure where to look, but not wanting to meet Sanders’ glare, he turned his face to the sky. “We’ve found an unidentified object, sir.” He followed his words with a vaguely pointed finger.
Sanders glanced at the base of a dead tree, found a pile of clothes not fit for a beggar, and turned back to the two nitwits. It was then the image of a pale leg filtered through his red hazed thoughts.
His gaze snapped back to the tree as his eyebrows drooped. It was a girl!
In a rush of movement, he threw out a hand to balance against the destroyed tree. With his other hand he flicked away a piece of fabric, revealing a ma
t of light hair coated in grime. He felt along a fragile neck until he reached the base. There, weakly pushing at his fingers, was a pulse.
“Gracas, tell Marc to meet us at camp! Make sure he gets his doctoring kit. Leilius, fetch water.”
The boys barely waited for the whip crack of commands to end before scurrying away. Commander Sanders scooped up the girl.
There couldn’t have been a worse scouting party to find her. Except for him, currently doing penance for tardiness, all five boys were in training, and showing no progress. They were the five worst cadets in the entire training camp, and if it weren’t for the Captain’s leniency in punishment, the boys would have been apprenticed out a long time ago. They needed to find something they were good at, because soldiering wasn’t in their future. Or doctoring, as in Marc’s case.
Back at camp, Sanders gently lowered the long waif in front of Marc. The young idiot at least had the sense to lay out a blanket.
Marc kneeled beside the girl slowly, his hands resting on his knees. With wide eyes he asked, “Is she dead?”
“You’re the doctor, moron!” Rachie, another trainee, shouted. The rest of the boys smirked, shifting closer to get a look at the girl.
“Silence!” Sanders barked. His glare backed the boys away.
It also made Marc flinch back.
Sanders pulled his irritation back in and hatched it down. He didn’t need anybody pissing themselves, and this girl was in a bad way. He adopted the high, quiet voice he used with his two-year-old niece. “She has a faint pulse. Don’t you remember anything of your training about faint pulses?”
Marc gulped and stared down at the girl. He shook his head.
A vein began to thrum along Sanders’ neck. His manic smile did not hold any humor. What it did hold, however, was the promise of agonizing pain.
The boys all took another step back.
“Think, Marc,” Sanders tried. His voice sounded like a knife sliding across a whetstone. “Check for wounds.”
Marc raised his hand to shade his face from Sanders’ glower. The other hand hovered over the girl’s torso, shaking, afraid to touch her frail skin.
Sanders’ clenched his fists and took a steadying breath. Marc was barely on the man side of puberty, still a virgin, and had never seen anyone hurt with more than a broken arm. A half dead woman was out of his league. The kid tested way above anyone else in his class, and his teachers said he knew all the information backwards and forward. But he refused to apply his knowledge in real life, retreating into his own introverted world.
If ever there was a time to rectify that little problem, it was now.
Sanders smiled again. Marc’s gulp echoed.
Sanders bent, looking over the still body. Her chest barely rose with each breath. She was covered in dirt from head to toe, but he didn’t notice any blood. No obvious injuries, either.
Leilius scuffled up with a bucket of water. Considering his effort, one would think he carried the bottom half of a cow. “I got the water here, Chief.”
“It’s Commander,” Sanders enunciated as he took over the bucket with one hand. “Rag?”
Gracas scurried up with a blue cloth. It looked like a piece of someone’s uniform. Judging by his sleeveless arm, it was his.
With quick movements, Sanders started to gently wash the dirt from the frail limbs. As the sludge rolled away, he noticed her skin color, pale where it wasn’t red. A foreigner. A distant foreigner at that. She looked about mid-twenties, if he was any judge.
He continued with his treatment, washing everything in sight, and emptied half the bucket over her filthy head. Other than a few scratches, however, she was devoid of visible injuries or bruising. And he couldn’t help but notice she had more muscle development than was normal for a female.
“Help me remove her clothing,” Sanders said as he lifted the bottom of her cover.
Marc’s face turned bright red. “Are you sure?”
Through clenched teeth, Sanders answered, “If you don’t start following orders, I am going to finish with her, and then beat you senseless. You get me? Now, help-me-remove-her-dress.”
Marc reached for the filthy garment with shaking hands, gingerly lifting it past her groin. The girl was bare underneath, and Marc strangled a petrified groan as everyone else gasped.
“Evacuate!” Sanders barked, clearing the space in seconds.
They’d all been on the receiving end of Sanders’ displeasure once or twice, and while looking at a naked girl was high on the list of very important things to see, he was pretty sure it ranked low on the list of ways not to get noticed. As well it should. Sanders would not hesitate to punch out a few more bruises.
As Marc worked off the rest of the fabric, Sanders continued cleaning, not finding anything of note. That was, until they got to the torso. Her skin sunk between each rib. Starved.
“She needs food and water. Nutrients,” Sanders whispered, covering her as a list of needs raced through his head. “Get a clean rag and dribble water into her mouth. If she wakes and starts to drink, give her no more than a dribble.”
Marc let out a noisy exhale of relief as the nipples disappeared, releasing him from paralysis. And while he nodded, he didn’t move.
Fire danced in Sanders’ eyes. The smile was back. “Then why aren’t you moving, Cadet?”
Marc made a sound like, “Huuuuuhhhhhhhhrrrrn,” as unshaped words escaped numb, petrified lips. A second later he took off running like his heels were on fire.
In quicker time than ever before, owing to somewhat harsher treatment by Sanders, the boys had the camp packed up and ready to go. They didn’t have anything to use as a stretcher since that numbskull Gracas had used it to start a fire their first night, and Sanders didn’t want to make a travois and leave heavy tracks, so the largest of the boys and Sanders took turns carrying the girl. They would hike for a day and a half, but while she was a tall girl, she weighed next to nothing. The hardest part for whichever boy was carrying her was focusing on walking rather than the female in his arms.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t so easy for a bunch of budding men holding something with breasts. Distraction was inevitable.
Throughout the day, Marc kept dribbling water into her mouth. He made sure to wet her head and neck, keep the sun off her face, and continue with the water, slowly, methodically. Sanders, eyes always moving, constantly surveying their surroundings, made sure to never keep his gaze on the doctor-in-training long. If the kid thought no one was looking, he seemed to settle into his ministrations. He displayed empathy for the unconscious girl instead of the need to seek approval. He made his own decisions regarding what nurtures were needed when, and how much liquid she could take at any given time. And he was doing it with confidence.
The one time Sanders commented on a job well done, the whole thing went to shit. The kid went back to useless immediately; stumbling, apologizing, and whining; seeking approval for everything; not making a decision on his own. It took three hours of being ignored for him to settle back into his rhythm. Sanders took the hint.
By dinnertime the band of boys were sullen and quiet, constantly shooting glances Sanders’ way. This was Rachie’s fault.
Under Marc’s diligent care, the girl had taken three gulps of water just before they stopped and then let out a long, pain induced moan. Rachie, who was carrying her at the time, had shouted, “Oh shit, she’s alive!”
The idiot had thrown his hands out to the sides as if she was a poisonous spider. Her body spilled across the ground, bringing forth another moan from her and a string of curses from Marc.
Rachie had been the first to learn that Commander Sanders, though one of the shortest men in the Soldier Force, was strong enough to get him airborne. Rachie also learned that being hurled head first into a dead tree hurt quite a lot. At least, that’s what Sanders’ took from the groan.
After the setback, Marc was able to get her to take a few more successful gulps. Then, after a lot of moaning and eye fluttering,
he began giving her broth. He had turned more nursemaid than doctor, but he was obtaining results, so Sanders said nothing. After a few pointed glares, each with a hovering threat of violence, no one else did, either.
Later that night Sanders sat in the camp, looking out at the night. A silver moon glowed high overhead, faintly illuminating the burnt and twisted land. A couple hours ago Rachie had woken him for his shift, complaining that something felt weird. When asked to elaborate, the youth couldn’t do it, just shrugged and scratched his shoulder, looking out at the night.
At the time, Sanders hadn’t thought any more about it. These boys wouldn’t know danger if it popped up in front of them wearing a sign. But as he sat, taking the deepest part of the night for guard-duty, the heavy feeling of dread had slowly settled on his shoulders. It pressed down, squeezing his chest and making his small hairs stand up.
Something was out there. Something was wrong.
One by one the boys started to toss and turn in their sleep. Even the girl, sleeping soundly for most of their journey, was writhing, moaning and whimpering in her sleep.
Yes, something was there. Danger lurked.
Sanders turned his knife over in his fingers. His sword lay in front of him on his sleeping bag, the hilt within easy grasp. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be alive for long.
“NO!” Xavier, the oldest boy in the troop, bolted up out of his sleeping sack and into a fighting crouch. He looked around wildly.
Once upon a time everyone, including the Captain, thought Xavier had real potential. He was massive for his age, strong, and growing into a powerful man. He just couldn’t fight for shit. He didn’t like hurting people and nearly fainted at the sight of blood. But now, when no enemy was in sight, he executed the fighting stance perfectly. Ready for combat.
Sanders was too unnerved to notice for long. His eyes continued scanning, looking out into the dark pools of shadow. Wondering what hid just out of sight. Wondering what looked back.
“Commander, something is out there,” Xavier hummed from his ready crouch. With nearly silent steps, he crossed the short distance to sit next to Sanders.
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 28
