by Sam Sea
"Yeah, maybe one day." Then Derran turned from looking through the window and stared right at her. "Mikka, are you going to help me?"
"We had a deal, and you made it good on that. You paid me for Les, and I plan to go back to the Capital and with the keys you gave me, I will find out about everything I can about my life, my parents and who took millions of credits from me…”
But Mikka was not finished there. “Then you asked me to help you get this Urko guy, and I deliver that to you for a favor that you still owe me. I will ask that favor of you really soon, and you better deliver, or else…”
Derran eyes dropped to the grass in front of his feet. "Whatever I have done to you, you still didn't need to become who you became."
"Yeah, and all that talk about surviving and being tough, that was all just a spaceshit?" Mikka took two steps toward him before she found his silence, his eyes nailed to the ground acknowledging his own guilt.
"Maybe I failed you, but you...you made your own choices."
"Yes, yes I did...I made my choices. I survived, even more than that, I guess. It was easy with the skills you taught me. And there are always people ready to pay for those skills."
“I never trained you to become an assassin!” he said half angry.
“So why did you call for me?”
“For number of reasons…”
“Explain this to me, please, for I do not understand… you have a problem here that maybe a squad of highly trained soldiers could control with ease… why not call for a support from your ECI friends? Huh? Why not call for the emperor to show his justice here? What exactly is going on here?” her voice seemed too loud and others turned their heads to look at them.
“If I could do that, I would have done it…” Derran answered it quietly and walked away, never stopping to lift his bowed head.
“Why you don’t trust me with information even still I have done nothing but what you asked of me?” Mikka called after him. “Yet you expect me to do your bidding without questioning?”
But then something inside of him snapped, and with uncontrolled anger, something Mikka never had a chance to see before, he turned around and scurried toward her, jostling her away from the others by holding and pushing on her elbow.
“You want to know? Do you really want to know?”
“Yes…”
“Fine… I’ll tell you… I received a transmission from the emperor himself that this whole place has been sanctioned, to be destroyed over some threat that he… decided not to share with me. I decided not to be part of it, but came here to see why is this place so important and what I can do to save it… That is why I had to go to the black market to look for help. I needed to know why is this place so important for the emperor…”
“So why not ask him?”
“Don’t you think I had?” Derran’s answer seemed not to subside. “But I got no answers, and my communications with the ECI had been terminated. And like I told you before, I do not even have enough juice on my ship now to go back to the Capital. I thought that you would help…”
“You could have asked for extra fuel cells? What the hell is wrong with you? Instead, you asked for me and now my cells seem to be just enough to take me back… You are just giving me excuses and not answers… Also, you know I am really wondering, could this poisoning also be some part of the emperor’s plan?”
“No… the emperor instructed that the planet be cleaned of human beings. This here seems like someone found the way to use it as a place to breed monsters and chaos. It seems like a plan of someone crazy enough to want to play god with these poor people.
Mikka was not finding answers appeasing. “You could have brought me with you, everything could have been so different…I never had to become…”
“Stop blaming me. Bringing you here was too dangerous… You were supposed to become a citizen, I left it all for you to enjoy…”
“I don’t believe you…” Mikka was laughing as the memory of things she had done caused her pain far greater than she cared to express.
“Believe whatever you want… But now… I have a whole city I may have to destroy if I want to save the whole planet. Would you help?”
“What?”
“You heard it. We cannot let millions be infected. It will create an army of wild orcs that will ride through five kingdoms creating hell. The city has to burn. It has to be blown to ashes. With everyone in it. I thought about it a whole night. And I do not see any other way. My ship has just about enough power to do that.”
"No! “ Mikka’s answer was instantaneous. “There is a little girl there who I care about. I will not let you do that."
"We could pull her out somehow…"
"No, she would not like that. She would hate me forever. I will not betray her.”
Mikka looked over the water and at the barge that was slowly coming their way. "I don't buy it..." she said finally.
"What you don't buy?"
"This.. all of this. I mean, what happened to you?" Mikka asked him half upset instead of answering his question.
Derran knew what she meant, and decided to keep quiet. "You were by far one of the most righteous person I have ever known...the most honest, the most forgiving...the best. I was broken in half when you disappeared.... And look at you now? Ready to kill millions. I bet that is what the emperor wanted you to do to begin with. All of these. I bet it was your plan from the start.”
“And what if that is true? I guess I would disappoint you again, huh?”
"No... I do not know… It just does not suite you. You were always so unscrupulous, so righteous. To see you like this… It is hard to understand. Never you... you would never take innocent lives so lightly. What happened to you?"
"Maybe I got smart. Plus, if I was all so righteous why did you become an assassin? You were a daughter to me, the daughter I could not have... Maybe it was my evil plan from the start."
Mikka chuckled...
"What a lousy ten years can do to a man?"
Derran shrugged his shoulders.
"So, you say, we kill them all, huh?"
“It has to be done…”
Derran said nothing after that, but stared at her, waiting for the answer. "If you help me, I can offer you... credits, anything… you name how much you want. And what you want. Consider it at least until tonight. I need your answer by tomorrow morning."
But Mikka answer came in rage she did not want to control. “Well, while we are subject of sharing information, there is something else I need to tell you..."
"What?"
"You never told me you had a daughter... One of the other things you decided not to talk about."
"Yes...I have a daughter. Back in the Capital...”
"Good, at least you remember that much. Did you leave her the same way you left me? Without good-byes, without explanations? Leaving it for some chance of things turning out all wrong?" From everything Mikka remembered, she really didn't even need that answer. She knew that's what happened, and asking it was more of a way to accuse him, hurt him for the things he did.
Derran decided not to answer that. "How did you find her?"
"Accident...it was an accident..." The way Mikka said it Derran knew there was something seriously wrong.
"Tell me...Tell me!"
"It's a long story... But…"
"So tell me a short version of it."
"Well, if you want to know, the shortest version would be that I put a bullet in your daughter. I shot her. And the last I know of her, she was bleeding, minutes separating her from death itself. Now what do you have to say to that?"
As they made it across the lake, Mikka rode up front, not ready to look to the back and see if anyone was following her. She pushed her horse hard and cared little if they did not stay up with her. She was concerned about Les, but more she yarned to see Silent as fast as she could. It was not until her horse went down, covered in sweat, unable to get up anymore, that she set on a grass by the road and decided to wait
for them.
It was already night when they reached her. As they made their camp, Les approached Mikka but seeing her face changed his mind and he decided to try his luck with Derran.
The old priest was sitting by himself away by the small campfire.
"I need to tell you something…” he told him as he sat next to him. “Sometimes I am not sure if it is true that I heard that at all... Sometimes I wonder if it was all just a mind trick when they tortured me... I’ve been trying to tell this to someone but nobody seems ready to listen to me…"
"What is it that you think you heard?"
"You know, I was sent to the Castle of North Sirnia , sent on a mission to retrieve information about the trading contracts that the duke had signed during the last four years. Except I got caught. But, before I got caught I heard something that scared the living out of me.”
“What was it.”
“They talked about opening the gates to hell... That the army of beasts would come and eat all the souls of every living being here... The way they talked about it was like they knew exactly how to do it."
"That’s interesting… Was the duke Forick behind it all?"
"No, the duke was not even there..."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes... I am certain. The duke's voice I heard afterwards, when he tried to interrogate me. I know the voices I heard that night did not belong to him."
"How many different voices did you hear?"
"Three..."
"Could you recognize them if you ever heard them again?"
"Yes, I think I could."
“Everything here seems to be getting more complicated…” Derran said as his glare lost itself in the campfire flames.
Les let him be like that for a while, but he could not keep his mouth shut for too long. "You seem to know Mikka... So just tell me, is she an angel or a devil? I know she cannot be of this world."
Derran turned around.
"You care for her huh?
Les decided not to say anything.
"She'll break your heart you know... Or you will break hers, which would be probably much worse for you…"
Les shrugged his shoulder. "We who once became Black Claws have our heart removed... We have not hearts."
Derran chuckled, then after a while decided to answer. "She is not an angel, nor a devil...”
"No, it cannot be... she strikes too fast. I've been in many fights, won all on which my life depended on, but I have never seen, not my master, not anyone alive, strike and move so fast."
"Yes, why is that the case?" Mikka suddenly decided to join them and set by the fire opposite Derran. He studied her closely as her eyes narrowed, daring him to speak. "Why am I so fast? Why don't you tell him, master? Why not say the truth for once?"
"I trained all my students to be faster than a snake, to learn how to move with the grace of antelope, to dance among its enemies as the best dancers of Ernia..."
"And... What else Master, what else did you do to your students?"
"Don't call me, Master, I've already told you. I stopped being your Master a long time ago."
"Tell him!" Mikka’s raised voice demanded an answer.
Derran sighed, exhaled that long breath he held for a while, and as he turned around and position himself better to drift into a short sleep, he said. "I developed this special formula, a serum, a drink if you wish to understand it right... It consisted of material that combined the animal with the human. It combined the speed of the fastest wipers, the agility of a wildest cat… It had a potential to change a person, make him or her extremely fast. So, their reflexes become faster than any human could possibly be.
“I did it to only to selected few, to those I trusted the most. Not to make monsters out of them, but to help them and those around them… So they could defend themselves better, and not die like so many of my students, brothers, children ended doing, hoping that they would never ever abuse such a power." As he talked, his voice became quieter, slowly drifting off, becoming lost to the dark and night. "Most of my students never really benefited from it, it never even clanged to them. But to the selected few, it did. To Mikka, unfortunately, it clanged too good. Unfortunately, it clanged to the worst possible person."
"Shut up old man!" Mikka snapped at him.
“What the serum also did was shorten the person temper. It made them agitated very easy and . I did not know at the time, but their training was never really completed… Their training needed to teach them to control their anger, to master their emotions… I failed in that area as well.” His voice was not more than a whisper, easily confused for the rustling of the falling leaves.
“Luckily, there is one who took on the serum even better... The one I could not find right now, but the one that can make things right."
"ECI Val...” Mikka knew who he was talking about. “You bastard!" Mikka had to smile thinking about it all. It all made sense. "Now I know...Now I know how he could do what he did. No wonder you like him, you are both the same, both the same back-stabbing sons-of-a-whores."
Derran smiled at her words. "All so feisty, my little Mikka, no wonder that it seems Val had slapped your bottom..."
"Bastard!"
"So, you see, Les, she is no god or angel, she is just a failed attempt to-"
"No, you are wrong there..." Les finally decided to cut in on their conversation. "Regardless of what you think, and how you did it, you made her into a goddess, and that's who she is now. Maybe you are not aware of it, but I am."
"I have an answer for you, Master... " Mikka said..." About your proposition about that little job you said we should do...that will let me live forever."
Derran turned around to look at her, seeing a mad glitter in them, and seeing at her posture, and he knew the answer before she said anything.
"Why?" was all he asked.
Les could not see how Mikka flew through the fire, but the sparks flew and she seemed to have landed where the old man was supposed to be. The metal clinked only once, and then Les saw Mikka sword frown from her hand, the blood welling between her fingers as she looked at Derran full of surprise.
He places his sword right next to her throat, and Les got up in panic.
"Whatever you did, whatever you did to my daughter… I cannot take your life... I just can't do it." Derran told Mikka as he put his sword away, and let it lose from his hand to the ground. "I lived long enough...seen things... and I am tired. Tired old man, if you wish to call me so. I, I am not ready to hurt you."
“I will not let you destroy that city.” Mikka’s determined voice would not let go. “You have to kill me if you want that done.”
Derran smiled. “I am sorry. I never intended to destroy the city in the first place. I am not a monster. I just wanted to know what would you do, would you still find excuse to accept anything to take a human life? I wanted to know if you have found a reason to live that goes beyond just satisfying your own vanity. You see, that’s all it was. I just wanted to know if you were incorruptible and how much you cared about that what you love…” There were tears in Derran eyes. “You see, as much as you love that little girl, I have not loved you or my little Li’a any less…”
"So you lied to me about the emperor?"
"I didn't lie to you about the communication we intercepted... But it did not come from the emperor... That's why I came here...To stop it from happening. And from what I hear, I am hoping that I am not too late…” Derran walked back to the camp fire and set down besides it again. “And I really cannot get in touch with the emperor or ECI anymore. I do not know why. They do not answer any of my communications. Understand? Do you understand now? I really needed to know if you could be trusted and would not sell me out, and if you are really ready to help me, to save as many as we can."
Mikka thought about the boy falling from the flying scooter who she pushed out to his death, all for the price of a million credits. She thought about others she killed for money, their faces flashing in front of h
er eyes, inside of her mind, without knowing filled her with tears. "I have done so many wrongs… I…"
"I am sorry..." Derran answered slowly. " I am sorry what happened to you... And I know we will probably not live through this... but, if you do, I want you to know... I am so sorry about everything."
The set there next to each other in utter silence for a while until Mikka decided to look at him again. "If it is true that Val is half a man who you claim he is, then, your daughter still lives... He had a way to save her, maybe not himself, but he could had saved her…"
Derran looked half confused not fully knowing what she meant, but decided not to ask any many questions. The only thing he said was: "Thank you... thank you for making the last days of the old man's life filled with less grief."
Chapter 20 - Reunions
They rode for the rest of the night and made it to the outskirts of the Three Rivers before noon, stopping only along the way to warn people to drink only rainwater and to hide in the forests.
But as soon as Mikka saw the Three White Roses tavern, it was obvious that things were already very wrong. The front gate seemed to have been torn open, parts of furniture from the tavern broken and thrown in the front court. No animal or human could be seen. Eerie silence engulfing it all, absent of even the sound of scared chickens made her hair stand up. As they raced their mounts toward the main door, fire had just started to lick one of its walls, braking through the glass window in a scattering pop.
"Silent!" Mikka screamed first, but only the fire cracking of more windows answered.
She ran inside, Ronnich right there besides her, screaming names of his son and wife. Right by the kitchen door, from where the fire raged, two half-orcs were bend over feasting on a body. How they were already there, she cared not to consider. From corpse’s clothes , Mikka knew that was the fat tavern keeper, and paid it no attention as she jumped upstairs toward Silent's room.
Ronnich could not match her, and as half-orcs jumped toward him, his sword found their throats and slid them open in two quick slashes.
