CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Hated and Feared
Terrias was a barren world, barely fit for human life, yet forced to support far more than it could handle as the masses gathered around the bastion of the Living God, praying for his unfettering and the glorious new paradise he promised. And so, Terrias bowed under their weight, not buckling but barely livable.
This was not the side of Terrias that greeted Flynn when at last he emerged through the rift. There was no mistaking the place—a trinity of moons cluttered the dusky green sky, the smallest of which was eclipsing the radiant blue sun.
“The fuck happened here?” Jean asked, awestruck.
“This is where they fought,” Flynn replied.
The valley beyond had been upturned, dragged across itself, and entirely rearranged. Fissures split through the ground, blue light bursting from their unknowable depths and making the whole valley glow.
“It must have been an incredible battle,” Poe observed.
“No kiddin’.” Jean sounded shaken, and she looked at her hands, wondering for the first time if her power could ever compare.
“This is the damage inflicted when just three quarrel?” Chari demanded. A crash of lightning came down in the distance; bands of electricity danced tirelessly in the sky.
“It was necessary,” Poe replied.
“It’s indefensible,” she countered. “Whole worlds may one day suffer for their whims! Why should we be subject to their volatility?” Remembering with whom she was now speaking, Chari corrected herself. “Why should we be subject to yours?”
Flynn intervened before things could escalate. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here to do a job.”
“That all this is?” Shea asked with some amusement.
He declined to respond. With their final mission at hand, emotion needed to be kept out of it. Worrying for his friends’ well-being could be dangerous enough, but fearing for Shea’s…
Flynn started walking, descending the path into the ravaged valley below. “We move,” he ordered without looking back. “Even if we have the element of surprise now, there’s no guarantee we’ll keep it.”
As they set out, Poe spoke. “I’ve felt a trace of something, since our arrival. It’s familiar—nameless, yet known.”
Flynn bowed his head in reply. “Taryl Renivar. I sense him too.” It was the same sensation he’d felt in the Living God’s presence before—not an apparition culled from memory, but the real thing. Distant, yet closer than the lies he’d communed with.
For Poe, the experience was likely not the same. That familiarity he described would grow as time went on, as he acclimated to what he had become; the only difference would be who bore the mantle Renivar would soon be relieved of.
As they traversed the uneven terrain, Flynn noted craters, of a size and shape that suggested a body had been smashed on them. Such abuse would have killed mortal combatants a hundred times over, and between Airia and Taryl, she’d have bested him beyond doubt. But from what Flynn could infer, Renivar endured, and that won him the day. Somewhere along the way, Airia and Kayra realized they would break before he did, and used the last of what they had to shackle him.
“Wonder how deep,” Shea mused as she peered into a fissure.
“To the center of the world?” Zaja asked. She stopped for a moment and spat into the rift, then waited to hear it land. “Nothing,” she shrugged.
It was a genial moment, but left Flynn with a sense of melancholy. The journey was ending. The group would fracture and go their separate ways. Perhaps it would be better if he went his own when all was done; no true goodbyes, just vanish as Zella had. It would at least dull the pain of impending separation, and allow for a clean, fresh start.
“Okay there, mate?” Shea asked some time later. Flynn hadn’t spoken since they’d begun negotiating the valley.
“Not right now.”
“What—?”
“Someone’s coming,” he interrupted.
Midway across an earthen bridge that arced the ominous blue void, Flynn heard the footsteps before the first heads came into sight. Falling back would allow them more space, but there was no doubt the enemy’s numbers were superior, and the narrow breadth of the bridge might better serve them.
“We meet again,” Crescen proclaimed. Nearly three dozen Reahv’li soldiers followed behind him as he surveyed the group with calm reflection. “Except you,” he said to Shea. “We’ve not had the pleasure. Crescen DuMear.”
“Charmed,” she replied dryly.
“I am dismayed to see you’re a head short,” he observed.
“We lost Zella back on Keltia.” Flynn adjusted his spectacles slightly. “We ran afoul of a conflict after fleeing Chot Vot. Stray bullet to the head. Died instantly.”
Crescen seemed crestfallen to hear it. He looked at Chari, but knew there were limits even to what she could do. “If true, that is unfortunate. The girl was meant for greater things. In our care, she would have realized a wondrous destiny. She was once so close to it.”
“You were askin’ her to die, asshole,” Jean snapped.
“To end the suffering of so many more. It’s a tired debate and I would not retread it, but to ask one question to avoid such unwelcome bloodshed on a much more local platform.”
“My allegiances have not changed,” Poe returned. “Your god shall bleed like a stuck pig on this day.” He paused, then corrected. “Perhaps in a few days. I’m uncertain how far we are from Yeribelt.”
“You could be on the threshold and it would not matter,” Crescen said. “But Rousow’s Legacy is a fitting place for your lives to end.”
“Rousow’s Legacy?”
“Ah, yes.” He chuckled at the name. “I don’t know who christened it so, but this land would be pristine had Airia Rousow not instigated battle with our Lord.” Crescen cast his eyes toward the radiant abyss. “Hatred accompanies destruction.”
Shea spoke up. “’Nough posturing. You to let us through?”
Crescen shook his head. He didn’t seem confident. Even though his forces outnumbered theirs nearly six to one, both parties already knew it wouldn’t be enough. Guardian Poe stood against them, and he was not a force to be trifled with. Crescen needed a moment to find his courage.
“I can’t.” He pointed forward and ordered, “End them.”
As the Reahv’li fell upon the six, they overtook them like a rolling tide. Several passed Flynn entirely, the errant Guardian their true objective, but they did not neglect his companions. As Flynn’s claws emerged, he noted that the soldiers as a collective had not improved—they were still children playing at war. However visceral their strikes, their hearts weren’t in it, for they valued themselves as good people, and such people didn’t kill. Several died before Flynn found himself staring down Crescen himself.
“Give up and you’ll live,” Flynn warned.
His opponent’s expression spoke measures, and the attack that followed was more earnest than any of his subordinates had managed. Flynn dodged and brought his claws to bear, striking at Crescen’s throat. Instead, Flynn was caught by the wrist, his arm wrenched with inhuman force, until he could only cry out in pain as he was forced to kneel.
“You’ve helped restore balance for a time,” Crescen said as he looked down on Flynn. “That is a significant deed, and you shall be remembered for your role in the new world. History may speak more kindly of you than you truly deserve.”
Flynn recognized that the hand Crescen was using to crush his wrist was artificial, doubtless acquired back on Breth. He could not win from a show of force alone.
“You weren’t ready for us,” he grunted, trying to draw out the exchange.
“We weren’t,” Crescen agreed. “There were numerous places you could have arrived through, provided the Guardian hadn’t mastered his blessings and willed himself to Lord Renivar directly.”
Judging by the force Crescen exerted, the prosthesis didn’t extend far beyond his wrist. Flynn’s own was on the verge of being cru
shed, and likely would be if he wasn’t careful breaking free. Crescen dragged him to the side of the bridge and prepared to toss him over the precipice.
“You deserve a better end than this,” he said. “But I cannot take any chances.”
He was dragged across the rough stone ground, which bit his back and scraped his skin, and Flynn knew within moments he’d be done for. As Crescen prepared to hoist him up and hurtle him to an unknowable end, he wrenched around and forced his captor to crush his wrist in response, using the purchase to plunge his claws into Crescen’s leg. This crippled him enough that Flynn could twist up and rend his arm, forcing Crescen to release his death grip.
There were things Flynn wanted to ask, but as the conflict played out behind him like an orchestra, he knew the man would never be forthcoming. Flynn planted his boot against Crescen’s chest and kicked him off without a word, then sank to cradle his injury and let the surrounding violence taper off following this crescendo.
When things had settled, no one had anything to say. They walked, wordlessly, from the mass of corpses.
*
It had only been a few hours since the lights of Rousow’s Legacy had faded on the horizon, and already Jean wished things could have gone differently. She’d known what to expect, though she’d hoped they would remain under the radar. Being known meant being hunted like an animal, and that feeling was accompanied by a sickening sense of schadenfreude that came with lashing out at her pursuers.
As she knelt at the edge of the precipice and stared down, she contemplated her handiwork in silence. The rock slide below had settled, its contents no longer shifting. She could see a hand cast in shadow, and for the one she could see, dozens more were buried. The only thing still moving was the cloud of dust, which wafted up toward her.
Jean breathed it in, and felt nothing.
Shea, by her side, coughed. “Don’t see any left,” she observed, rubbing the dirt from her eyes. “Buried, seems.”
“Yeah…” Jean replied vacantly.
“Gave chase,” her companion reminded her. “Couldn’t lose them. Not much choice.”
A shard of stone broke free and tumbled down. It landed pointing at a spray of blood that had already dried.
“So I keep remindin’ myself,” Jean said. “What we’re here to do, though? Can’t blame ’em, either.” She turned away heavily, confident that they were no longer being followed. The road ahead stretched for miles.
“Why so hard? Done this before, haven’t you?”
“Killed, ya mean? Plenty of times. You seen it.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Just, there’s ways it’s supposed to happen. Ways it’s not. A fair fight, mano-a-mano, I can live with. People bein’ afraid of who I am, can live with that too. But I don’t…” She looked at her hands. They were shaking, and Jean had to will them to stop. “Don’t like havin’ people fear me for what I am. Stupidest fuckin’ thing, hatin’ someone for somethin’ they can’t change.”
Shea stopped long enough to light a cigarette. “Never had that problem. den Viers not exactly welcome, aye, but passed years as a Bagwell.” Her tone shifted. “Anyone had found out, now…”
“Woulda been a different story,” Jean finished. “How the fuck they justify it, seein’ us the way they do?”
Shea blew a ring of smoke out and gave Jean a knowing smile. “Two countries go to war. One side, resources; other, land. Neither side gives, ’course, knowing the other wants. Commoners don’t fancy war, it comes anyway. So ‘they’re bad,’ each tells themselves, ‘don’t deserve what they’ve got.’ Makes right to take, see.”
“How the hell do we got that they want?” Jean asked. “They’ve already got their own shitty feel-good planet.”
“Our sort might take it one day,” Shea pointed out. “So they’ll take what’s ours first.”
Jean shook her head in disgust. She hated being the villain of this piece, but knew she’d never make it by being heroic. Those soldiers at the mountain’s base had to die, and their loved ones and allies would hate her all the more for it.
“What pisses me off,” she shared, “is that all these folks out here would see us dead in a heartbeat, but they’re too chicken shit to bloody their own hands.”
“Cowards, all of ’em,” Shea concurred with an ironic chuckle.
*
Where Crescen’s hand of flesh and blood would have failed, his synthetic one saved his life. The false skin that coated it had been shredded from clawing the rock walls of the fissures, but it held fast to his wrist, a testament to Brethian craftsmanship.
As he climbed back to stable ground, he counted the dead before him. There was blood in his eyes, and it mingled with his tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he wept. “I hoped we would find nothing.”
Many had died with expressions of horror, unprepared for the pain that accompanied death. But Crescen wept more for those unaccounted for, whose bodies had fallen from the path. They might not have died when they fell, might still be falling now.
The women and men who’d fought at his side would not return home. Loved ones would weep for them, while he’d return to an empty home. It would have been easier to die with them, or be written off as having done so. Crescen had done his duty; if he never showed his face again, none would know to blame him.
The prospect of returning was daunting—he was only one man. What could he do before the power of a god? If that fear alone was enough, Crescen DuMear would not have caught himself. He would not have suffered the grueling climb back to the top, nor looked down the seemingly infinite road he had led his band up only hours earlier.
And so he hobbled back that way, with honest faith that he still had the power to make a difference. They were six unwelcome visitors. Crescen was one, fighting in service of his god. All this world loved him.
*
Poe met Jean and Shea halfway to their destination, and he came bearing promising news. “A small mining town waits some distance ahead,” he reported. “There is no sign the Reahv’li have come this way, and we should be able to pass unknown, after taking shelter for the night.”
Jean found this news more discomforting than reassuring. “Seems a shitty thing to do, lyin’ to these folks and takin’ advantage of ’em.”
Poe glanced at Shea, who shared nothing helpful, then settled on Jean to ask, “Did something happen?”
She wasn’t feeling better about the corpses she’d left behind several miles down the road. They had met other travelers who had offered water and food. Shea had been ready to accept, but Jean had declined before she had the chance. Renivar’s worshippers were the sort of people who would investigate the rock slide to ensure no one had been hurt, and they were due to find a great many bodies.
“Nothin’,” Jean told Poe. “Expected a bit more glory, is all.”
“These foes are beneath us.”
His agreement daunted her, but he didn’t sound any happier about it than she was. They walked on in silence, until they found the town’s outskirts, and Flynn and Chari waiting for them.
Flynn was quick to approach Jean, his concern evident. “Did you have to—?” he started to ask.
“Did,” she nodded sharply. “Fuckers caught up with us. Dropped the mountain on ’em.”
“All remains silent here,” Chari said with cold detachment. “Zaja waits for us ahead. This night’s lodging has been secured.”
“What’s owed?” Shea asked as they approached the town. “We’ve neither time nor money to pay.”
Something about Flynn’s smile creeped Jean out. “This is Terrias. They only barter in kindness.”
Zaja waved cheerily at them as they neared the town entrance, gladly proclaiming, “Welcome to Kodo!” She was clearly overjoyed to be here, and Jean remembered how well Zaja had taken to Terrias’s people the first time. Among so many supportive faces, it was easy to forget what they prayed their god would one day accomplish.
Zaja beckoned them to hurry. “Guys, come on! Our
host is wetting his whistle nearby. He promised to escort us to his house where we’ll be staying. I guess it’s a little off the beaten path, and he wanted to ensure we get there okay.”
Kodo was almost entirely what Jean expected—a scatter of shanty buildings with a single dirt road running through it. The tire tracks were deeply embedded, and suggested a daily pickup for whatever the miners of Kodo unearthed.
“Their resources are likely traded for food and supplies from other worlds,” Flynn speculated. “Though I doubt their clients know the otherworldly origins of their goods.”
Yeribelt hadn’t been any more luxurious when Jean had been there last. The city of tents was intended as an impermanent fixture, a testament to the belief that the Living God might break free any day. Kodo, meanwhile, appeared more cynical, and its inhabitants likely expected to remain a while longer.
They met their prospective host at the rail of a rustic saloon, nursing a mug of beer as he waved to Zaja. The inhabitants of Kodo had gathered from across the stars—Omati like Zaja and Keltians like Shea—but this man held unique fascination for Jean, and she lit up at the sight of him.
“Yer like me,” she told him, cradling her enlarged forearms.
He was older, nearing middle age. His black hair was thinning and his gut was enlarged from many beers past. He was also clearly from Earth, though every part of his exposed skin was coated in bristles; even shaking his hand could be damaging.
“Yer a half-human,” she finished.
At first, he seemed to welcome Jean like a sister. “Yes, I…” But the friendliness died in his eyes, like he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. “…am,” he finished softly.
Zaja extended herself, oblivious to the turn in mood. “Hi, Kim! So, these are my friends. We don’t wanna be pushy, so you can go ahead and finish your drink first—”
Kim knocked his mug over as he scrambled back. The distance between the rail and the wall was narrow and he didn’t manage to put much between them. “I’m sorry,” he sputtered. “If I’d known that you … they…”
The locals had been stealing glances all the while. They were casual, none looking close enough to bother raising a ruckus. But Kim had, and now he was attracting unwanted attention. Flynn was quick to intervene, “I assure you, whoever you think we are—”
Killers, Traitors, & Runaways: Outcasts of the Worlds, Book II Page 40
