Always Walk Forward

by Billy Wong

  Vincent was less impressed. "And you two believe her?" He sneered. "Just because she's good at fighting compared to us doesn't mean anything. I admit to not being any sort of skilled fighter, but we're just actors. She's only a few years older than us, no way she's this big shot she plays at. The average city guardsman could probably beat her up."

  Sam shot him an exasperated look. "Who she can or can't take in a fight wasn't the topic of discussion in the first place. She doesn't have to be some amazing warrior to have traveled between cities. She could have just been protected by the rest of the convoy, though I imagine she could do her part in its defense based on what we've seen."

  "She's faster than fast with a sword," Eli said. "The way she handles our overheavy prop greataxe would be impressive for a big man let alone a girl."

  "I could see her going between cities," Vincent admitted. "But the ocean? That would make her very well traveled."

  It did stretch credibility a tiny bit. Daimons were tough to handle for even the most well equipped humans, and with the number of them out there anyone journeying that far must have something of a death wish. Still, "It's not as if she volunteered this information offhand. I had to loosen her up a bit before she shared it, so that makes it a little less likely to be a lie for her amusement."

  "Where is Drea, anyway?" Eli asked. "She's late, not much time left to eat before we have to start getting ready."

  Just then, Drea ambled down from the stairs and joined them at the table, hurriedly biting off a big chunk of her bread. "Heavy makeup day, I see," Vincent observed. "What, are you expecting to meet a potential suitor or something?"

  She gave her usual nonchalant shrug. "I feel like looking pretty today."

  "I think you look better with light makeup," Sam said.

  "Well, it's good to have variety. By the way, what conversation did I miss?"

  A brief silence hung over the table. Then Vincent spoke up. "Did you really travel between cities and near the ocean? To be honest, I find that dubious."

  Drea grinned. "I don't fault you for doubting it. Think what you like. But would you believe me if I told you these were made by a daimon?" She pulled up the bottom of her shirt, revealing a set of parallel scars running from her flank to her navel. They resembled... claw marks. Sam wondered if they were the only scars she had.

  "Those look painful," Eli said softly. "Was the daimon large, and did you kill it?"

  Vincent scoffed. "Daimon? Don't be so daft. Those probably came from a big cat."

  Sam chuckled as she pointed out the obvious. "But even if they did, wouldn't that give credence to her having traveled? Not many big cats in urban settings."

  "It could have been a housecat clawing her when she was small, with the scar expanding as she grew older."

  "A housecat, really?"

  Drea looked sidelong at her. "No need to be hard on him. Maybe it was." And she refused to answer any more questions on the matter, leaving it to their imaginations.

  #

  Weeks went by, their performances gaining more success. Their audiences grew and grew as word spread of their dynamic choreography, and soon the playhouse no longer struggled to make ends meet. Even if Drea might not be a real world traveler, Sam felt grateful to her for pulling their company up out of the quicksand. She hoped it was true though. To think that people could survive journeying as far as from here to the ocean would be inspiring.

  One night well after practice, a loud knocking sounded at the door. Sam had already gone to bed, but dragged herself sluggishly up to see what was going on. She saw Vincent missing from his bed and exited the room she shared with him and Eli to find him already heading downstairs. She followed, reaching the foot of the steps just in time to watch Director Jon open the door. Her eyes widened. Four huge men in dull gray plate armor, faces masked by smooth featureless helmets that made them resemble living statues, stepped inside. Heavy swords hung from sturdy belts, hands hovering near the hilts in an unspoken threat. They were followed by a tall but somewhat thinner man in his fifties with no helm, an angular countenance and slicked back gray hair.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Cal asked anxiously, standing beside Jon. Joan stood further back, looking scared. "We've done nothing wrong, what business do the Paladins have-"

  "We are here to take custody of the boy called Eli," the helmetless man said in a voice so flat as to seem soulless. "Hand him over at once."

  Jon stared, as did the others. "Eli? What could you possibly want with him?"

  "You appear to be a learned man. Do you expect an answer?"

  Sam realized she had broken into a cold sweat as icy terror gripped her. Contrary to their lofty name, the Paladins were the dark hand of the government, whispered to do for it what its more public branches could not. Sometimes they would take people without warning or reason given, and those they took were never seen again. It was widely accepted that at least some if not all of them ended up dead, though no bodies were ever found to prove it. "We can't let them take him!" Sam cried. "If we do, he'll... he'll be gone."

  Cal looked at her and sadly shook his head. "There's nothing we can do."

  Footfalls sounded from the stairs. Eli walked down, rubbing at his eyes. Sam swallowed. "What's going on?" He stared as he took in the visitors. "Who are these men?"

  "Is that Eli?" the Paladin leader asked. Jon slowly nodded, and he waved his assistants forward. Two hulking statues clunked forward to take Eli by the arms. "You'll be coming with us."

  Understandably, Eli's eyes bulged further, and his jaw hung open with shock. "Wait, what? What are you doing, who are you?" No answer came while the men dragged him towards the exit. He kicked and struggled, a natural reaction in his confusion, but it was no use; his captors carried him along easily as a toddler. Scant seconds later, they went out the door and were gone. A cold wind blew through the open portal, chilling the room. Scared and shaken as Sam was, she could hardly imagine how much moreso Eli felt and would continue to feel.

  "We shouldn't have let them take him," she said, her voice sounding distant as she stood in a daze.

  In an equally dumbstruck tone, Vincent agreed, "Yeah, we should have stopped them."

  "Did you not hear what Cal said?" Jon snapped. "There is nothing any of us could have done! We are actors, not warriors. If we tried to resist, what do you think would have been the result?"

  Sam didn't like to admit it, but it rang true. While she had a smidgen of training, she would have little chance against the much larger, seasoned fighters who made up the secret police. Her theatre mates, their training limited to a few months of stage fighting with Drea, would stand even less chance. "Us perhaps, but maybe Drea could-"

  Vincent interrupted. "Against five Paladins? I know how highly you think of her, but even she wouldn't have a prayer of winning."

  "Are you turning on me?"

  "No, of course not! We should've saved Eli." He paused, then said quietly, "But Cal and the Director are right. We simply couldn't."

  "What if the rest of us had helped? Even if we couldn't beat them, if we just occupied a few of the Paladins while Drea fought the others, maybe..."

  Jon crossed his arms. "And imagining we did miraculously defeat this group, perhaps spilling their blood, what then? Would the Paladins give up and leave us be? Or would they come back with more men and orders to kill?"

  "I, well..."

  "There was nothing else we could have done that would not have been futile and pointless, other than what we did."

  Tears sprang from her eyes. "So you're saying it's right for us to let them take Eli, to leave him to die or whatever horrible fate awaits him at their hands? I thought he was a son to you, and you loved him."

  A droplet of moisture escaped the corner of Jon's eye to run down his cheek, leaving a long line of wetness, and she regretted speaking so harshly to him. "Of course I am not saying it was right, and I do love him. It would be better that I go in his place, considering he had his whole life ahead of him
. But again... that was not a choice."

  She stood there crying into her hands, her heart pounding so hard with fear and despair and fury it felt like it would burst through her ribs. After a time, she raised her tear-stained face to look up. "But why do the Paladins get to not be accountable for anything? My dad used to say that as a servant of the people, he had to be careful in his actions, for if he made a mistake he would answer to the law and his own conscience. Yet the Paladins do what they please, barge into homes and spirit away children"—Eli wasn't quite that young, but it helped emphasize the point and they were known to take children sometimes—"with no explanation given. Who do they answer to? Why aren't they accountable?"

  "I'm certain there is an authority they obey," Cal said. "The Lord Paladin whose office is nestled in the highest tower of the capital, or so they say, and no doubt the Council above him."

  Sam didn't fucking care. "But why must their purpose only be known to those high and mighty figures sitting above it all in their 'high' offices, leaving the families of their victims to suffer with no idea why? I demand an answer! I demand disclosure, and a chance to judge if their motives are just!"

  "You're drooling, Sam," Vincent said.

  "So what?!"

  Jon bowed his head. "I agree with you in principle. It's unfair that the Paladins can do whatever their masters will, and the citizens whose interest they presume to serve have no say in the matter. But who are you, or we to demand anything of them?"

  She balled a fist and raised it before her. Looking at it, small but tight so that the sinews stood out, hardened her resolve. To herself, she said almost inaudibly with a sniff, "I swear, I will not let this rest."

  "What did you say?" Vincent asked.

  "Nothing. Our elders are right. We have to move on now, even if we know we were wronged. No use dwelling on something that can't be changed."

  He dropped his gaze. "That's kind of disappointing to hear from you. I suppose you have to be realistic, though."

  The argument over, Jon and Cal turned to shamble wearily away as if twice their actual age. Joan followed. I'll expose the Paladins, Sam thought. I'll save Eli if I can, and avenge him if I... can't. I will lay the truth of their sins bare and get justice for their victims. It seems a bit of a faraway goal, but I won't stop reaching. "Anyway," she said to Vincent, "I wonder what Drea is doing? Do you think she just slept through all that?"

  "She is more physically active than any of us. Maybe it tires her out that much." He regarded her questioningly. "Are you really giving up on Eli? That concession seemed rather abrupt."

  "Have you given up on him?"

  "I, uh... well." He touched the back of his neck anxiously. "I'm not very keen on facing danger, and I'd be even more in over my head opposing the Paladins than you. Make no mistake, you would be in way over your head.

  "But Eli is my damn brother, Sam. We've been together almost as long as I can remember. I can tell you still want to help him, and you've only been with us for four years. How shitty a big brother would I be if I gave up on him, when you haven't? So if you think there's any chance to save him, then I'll do everything I can."

  Sam felt a smile cross her tear-streaked face. "I'd hoped you would say something like that. I don't know what chance we have. But since there's a more experienced person residing with us right now, I was thinking to ask her for her thoughts. Let's pay Big Sister Drea a visit."

  #

  They went to the bedroom which had been Cal's until recently, when Drea arrived and he took to sleeping on a couch in the study. Repeated knocks on the door produced no answer. "A person with her experience sleeps that soundly?" Vincent asked. "You'd think she would be conditioned to react more quickly to noise signaling potential danger. I'm starting to think all that talk might have been hogwash again."

  "Don't say that," Sam said softly. "If she can't help us, I don't know where else to turn. Anyway, the door is locked, but I think I can climb to her window from the next one."

  "You think? Be a waste if you break your neck. Maybe we should just wait to talk to her tomorrow."

  "The longer we delay the less likely we'll be able to save Eli! I can make it."

  They opened the window in their own room next door, and Sam climbed out to shimmy nerve-wrackingly along a narrow ledge to Drea's. The shutters were closed, but not locked. She pushed them ajar and entered to find the room empty. What? At this time of night, where could she have gone? Was it a coincidence that she'd disappeared with the Paladins' arrival? "What's going on?" came her friend's muffled voice from outside the door.

  "She's not in here..." Vincent fell silent, probably feeling the same discouragement she did. She had all but resigned herself to waiting until Drea returned, though the thought of squandered time made her gnash her teeth with dread, when she spotted the piece of paper pinned under a candlestick on the dresser. On it was the name and description of a lively tavern, along with its address. While it listed no special event for today or any date, it was their only lead. She opened the door with the flyer in hand and showed it to Vincent. "With any luck, this is where we'll find her."

  Chapter 2

  Sam hurried down the broader streets of the commercial district with Vincent in tow, paying no heed to the few vagrants or drunks they passed by. Her pulse raced without end, as she couldn't calm down. Save Eli, she kept thinking. Stop the Paladins. Save Eli. Stop the Paladins. Save Eli. Stop-

  "Slow down," Vincent said behind her, voice winded. "You need to get a hold of yourself, you'll burn yourself out at this rate."

  "I won't burn out. I feel fine." Stop the Paladins. Save Eli. Stop the Paladins. Finally they made it before the gaudy violet and beige facade of a corner tavern. "This is the Plucked Pigeon?" she asked the tall, clean shaven doorman with ebony skin in an expensive but too-small jacket. He must be descended from people who migrated north from the continent of jungles long ago, during a lull in the conflict between anjeli and daimons.

  "Indeed." He examined them with a quizzical expression. "What business might two as young as yourselves have here?"

  They had never been to a tavern before, she realized. Jon always told them they shouldn't drink before they'd made love, which sounded odd to her but Eli and Vincent had always accepted. "We're looking for a girl named Drea. Do you know if she's come by tonight?"

  "Oh, so you're here for that. May I have your payment?"

  "Payment?"

  His forehead crinkled in amusement. "Five silver pieces for entrance. That is not so much, is it?"

  Actually, it was enough to buy food for a week. But they'd heard the nightlife was a costly thing. Vincent removed five coins from his purse and handed them to her. A fine gesture, when she'd been thinking to pay herself. She placed them into a great brown palm and started forward, then looked back when Vincent didn't follow. The doorman had stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. "Five pieces each."

  Sam paid Vincent's fee and they headed inside. The smell of the place was nothing like she'd ever experienced, an overwhelming cocktail of booze, smoke, sweat and vomit. Men and women bantered standing up or sitting down, stumbled dazedly between bar and seats, or slumped unconscious over tables and the slick floor. Sam felt drunk just taking it in—or otherwise intoxicated, given the smoke she inhaled. "I never realized a tavern was so... jumbled," Vincent murmured. "Where do you think she might..?"

  "The show is downstairs," the doorman said for their benefit.

  Show? Sam figured Drea must be watching it, but wondered what it might be a show of. They weaved their way through the maze of bodies and furniture to a dim, creaky staircase leading down. Enthusiastic shouts, shrieks and whooping reached their ears from below. They descended and emerged into a wide space, a large basement which sloped down towards the middle filled by an unruly mob. Mostly men, but some women, many with large tattoos, piercings in unusual places, or wild hairstyles. Folks who wanted to look tough.

  At the middle stood a structure the size of a slum house—a fence?
Hoping no one would take offense, Sam squeezed as far forward as she could before a shorter fence barred her path. The structure was indeed a fence, but the relatively small area it enclosed made it remind her of something else. A cage. A young man stood inside it, completing the impression. He was handsome, dark skinned like the doorman and massive, several inches over six feet with chest, shoulders and long arms bulging with muscle. Yet his waist was slim and he bounced lightly on his feet, built perhaps as much for speed as power. A great tattoo of an axe covered his back, the double-sided head spreading out over his shoulder blades.

  "Is this a... fighting competition?" Sam hesitantly asked a potbellied man with a long beard crowding in beside her.

  "It's the bethe fightig compitition!" he slurred.

  Vincent indicated the man currently inside the cage. "Is he a good fighter?" Given his appearance, Sam could hardly fathom him not being at least "good."

  "He ist a grate fightor! Lath fight he cock out a man twith his size with a ponch to the forehead!" It was kind of hard to picture somebody twice his size, so Sam took it for an exaggeration.

  "I once saw him knock out an opponent with one short uppercut against the fence," another spectator put in.

  A third added, "I saw him knock out a fellow with a jab moving backwards."

  A fourth chimed in. "I heard he knocked out an ox! I bet he puts the champion to sleep tonight."

  The group seemed to come back down to earth. "I'm not so sure about that," the third speaker said.

  For all the talk of his power, Sam found herself more impressed by his speed as he warmed up by boxing the air. His hands seemed absurdly fast. He threw out a score of punches in a couple seconds like it was nothing, and she lost count soon after that.

  "And now," a man's boisterous voice cut through the chatter to quiet the crowd, "it is time for tonight's main event! In the ring, the challenger, standing six feet three inches tall, weighing two hundred forty pounds, the hardest puncher in all the Heartland, Tonius the Tremor!" The fighter raised his arms in an understated call for support, and fans cheered and yelled his name.