Shadow Heart

by J. L. Lyon

  She felt a lump in her throat as she saw 301’s face, but was quickly forced to turn her mind elsewhere.

  A lion had just emerged from the woods.

  The region was overrun with them, she knew—apex predators who had flourished in the void left by humans. However, their population had grown so large that the food supply became scarce, which increased the rate at which they would attack humans traveling in the Wilderness. Many Undocumenteds had fallen victim to the claw and jaw of the mountain lions, as had—more recently—scouts from the Imperial Guard.

  Liz froze by instinct, succumbing to the irrational hope that perhaps the lion had not seen her.

  But the fire made her the focal point of the entire area. By the eerie gleam of the flames she saw the lion look straight at her and lick its chops. The sound from her nightmares rang in her ears, of lions roaring in victory while their prey cried out in final desperation.

  And in that moment, the despair was hers.

  Soldiers do not know despair, her memories intoned. Only death stops them—and they do not fear it when it arrives at the door.

  Liz shook off her irrational horrors and saw the lion for what it was: a starved and weak animal of the cruel Wilderness…a creature to be pitied, not feared. If it dared to attack her, it would find she had teeth stronger than any it had faced before.

  She drew both Ignis and her sidearm, hoping that as the blade ignited it might deter the lion’s attack. The bright flash gave the creature pause, but after a moment it began to inch forward, judging the need to sate its hunger as worth the risk.

  The lion reared back and prepared to spring, causing every muscle in Liz’s body to tense with the thrill of battle. It lunged, and she did not hesitate. She raised her sidearm and put a bullet square in the creature’s head. It dropped like a sack of meat.

  Liz let out the long breath she had been holding, and felt weakened as the rush of adrenaline subsided. For a moment the lion had made her forget the cold and fatigue, but now it came back in full force. She had only begun to turn back toward the fire when she felt a chill creeping up her spine, overcome with the feeling of being watched by someone—or something—that she could not see. She scanned the trees and found only a void of darkness.

  Still, that instinctual uneasiness in the presence of danger did not subside. Something lurked there, where the trees swallowed the light of her fire within depths of black…and though she knew that the phantom always inspired more fear than its true form, she still found herself fighting the urge to flee.

  Then, from the trees arose a low, guttural noise—filled with a primeval anger and hatred unlike anything she had ever heard before. Pure terror seized her heart in its icy grip, and her confidence melted away. Her hands tightened around the weapons she still held ready, for they would be her only salvation.

  Come out, she willed the creature. Face me, and feel the fear you now inspire.

  Two pinpricks appeared at the treeline, evil lights from within the world of black, and behind them emerged a graceful shadow—soundless, slithering over the earth like a breath of wind, until it at last came within reach of the light. Liz sighed with relief. It was another lion.

  Emboldened by her previous encounter, she raised her sidearm and took careful aim, allowing the animal to come closer so long as it did not lunge. It paused at the fallen carcass and hissed at her angrily, the look in its eyes suggesting this was an anger borne out of grief. No, she thought. It’s just an animal. But then, what was it about that terrible gaze that made her feel…empathy?

  Liz lowered her weapon and took a few steps backward to let the creature mourn in peace. The lion watched her suspiciously and hissed again. Chances were that it was just as hungry as the one she had killed. Did lions eat their own? So much the better for her if so.

  Suddenly the lion’s demeanor changed and became calm—submissive, even. Its eyes shifted to a position just over her right shoulder, and ice once again flowed through her veins. She turned back toward her fire as two more lions—bigger and more ferocious than the first two—leapt upon the road’s concrete divider and roared their cries of victory. They had caught her in a pincer attack.

  Liz had less than a second before becoming their next meal, and the soldier in her kicked in. She pointed her sidearm back at the lone lion and pulled the trigger, eliminating the threat from behind, and then fired upon the two preparing to pounce from the divider. One bullet was not enough to stop them. She planted three in one before it fell backward, giving the other time to pounce. She brought the gun in line with the animal’s trajectory and sent a bullet straight into its torso. The force was enough to knock it to the ground, but not kill it.

  She took careful aim again and pulled the trigger. The gun responded with a quiet click—she was out of ammo. Six rounds? She thought incredulously. Gavin dropped me in the middle of the Wilderness with less than half a magazine? That cheap son of a—

  The lion was back on its feet. She dropped the sidearm—now worthless to her—and lifted the glowing Spectral Gladius between her and her foe. Now she would have to deal with the predator at close range, and would likely only get one shot at a counter stroke. If it wasn’t perfect, the lion would pin her down and it would all be over.

  A low growl sounded from the lion’s throat, and it reared back on its hind legs. Liz felt the muscles in her arms tighten as she prepared for the lunge. The lion sprang, quick as a bolt of lightning, its jaws wide and its claws outstretched. Speed and agility were strengths Liz normally took pride in, but even at her best it would have been close. The cold and fatigue made her weak, and she didn’t make it. The lion’s claws raked across her back, tearing through cloth and flesh as she narrowly avoided being pinned and impaled. Pain exploded through her torso, but she could not allow the lion to make another attempt.

  As the creature’s momentum carried it by her, she swung Ignis downward and nearly cut it in half. The lion gave one final yelp of pain, and slumped to the ground…dead.

  Liz was left with nothing but the sound of her own ragged breaths and the sensation of blood pounding through her veins. Four lions lay dead around her, and she still stood—but that did not mean she had survived. She reached back with difficulty to probe the wound on her back, and her hand came away slick with blood. If not for the protection of her coat, the lion might have torn into her spine. The coat had absorbed much of the blow so that her skin had only been grazed—still a nasty set of wounds that would undoubtedly leave a scar.

  The burning pain was not her concern so much as the cold air biting into the skin of her back. The coat’s protection from the winter night had been torn away, leaving her back exposed to the elements. Whatever time she had left before freezing to death, it had just been exponentially reduced.

  She knelt beside her dwindling fire, knowing she was lost without it, and tried to keep it alive long enough to figure out what to do. Could she repair the coat, or at least the shirt underneath? That would require her to expose more of her body, if only temporarily—a risk in itself.

  As she weighed her options, a loud cry echoed through the night and caused her body to go rigid again with fear. She recognized the roars in an instant. How many lions can there possibly be?

  More of them than of humans in this part of the Wilderness, most likely. She had to assume they—like the ones that lay dead nearby—were hunting, and her fire was a beacon drawing them right to her. She couldn’t stay. But to leave was to risk a slow death by hypothermia—which end did she prefer?

  She remembered that hideous mouth of teeth and the fire in those outstretched claws, and shuddered. Hypothermia, for sure.

  Liz deactivated her Spectral Gladius to avoid drawing the attention of any more predators, and continued on in the direction she had been traveling all night. The roars continued intermittently behind her, still a good distance away—but getting closer. She increased her pace and looked with dread upon the endless forest. It was the first time she actually considered leaving the
road. There was no way she could outrun lions in the open.

  Shadows moved behind her in the dark, elusive, always on the edge of her vision. When she turned they fled from her, or materialized into rocks and debris. There came a moment when she wondered if the cold had driven her to hallucinate. And then that moment was gone, and all she felt was panic. She thought she heard the sound of paws behind her, and turned to find nothing. But when she began to make her way forward again, the sound returned. Eventually, her brisk pace turned into an all-out run for dear life. While part of her tried to remain rational, the primal won out—she became convinced that there were hungry lions right at her heels.

  Liz veered off the road, following a trail of concrete that led down to a lower elevation. Once, it had probably been a decent-sized town. Now it was ruin.

  She could no longer feel the pain of the wounds on her back—something she knew should concern her, but she couldn’t find the strength to care. Suddenly she tripped and fell, sprawled out on the road. She tried to rise, but couldn’t. Her body no longer responded easily to her commands.

  With great difficultly she crawled off the road and set her back against a nearby building. The world around her grew fuzzy, but her survival instincts still warned her that she couldn’t fall asleep. Out here, in the wild, to sleep was to die.

  But her body was shutting down against her will. Numbness had spread through her limbs and into her torso. It had even dulled her brain.

  So this is it, she thought sadly. This is how it all ends. Alone, terrified, freezing in the Wilderness.

  The last thing she saw was a shadow looming over her, which sparked her last lucid thought: it would be the lions that got her after all.

  6

  SCREAMS SOUNDED OUT FROM the walls, the remnants of an old nightmare that had lingered much too long. His skin crawled every time he entered this pit of despair, haunted by memories he had attempted to cast aside but could never quite leave behind.

  He had wanted it that way, his master. Even as he acknowledged it, even as he hated the fate to which it made him subject, he embraced it. Part of the programming that all those years of screaming had forged. He understood the horrors, the intricacies of what had been done to him, and yet still he served.

  There was no other choice.

  The screams rang out again, less concerning this time. He had learned early to lock away those emotions that made him weak, and fear—regret—made him weak. His back straightened and he set his jaw in determination. Best to get this over with as soon as possible.

  Even the creak of the floorboards beneath his feet as he walked were familiar. He remembered all the places where he needed to step to remain silent, and it took all his self-control not to follow that path.

  Another shout came, more desperate, sharper...and then was suddenly silenced. He could imagine what had taken place, having been on the receiving end of that frustrated rage more times than he could count.

  He came to a stop in front of the door behind which the tortured man no doubt sat unconscious, and waited. His breathing became irregular and his heart beat faster in anticipation. What am I doing here? Why do I answer the summons of this madman?

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have. Every encounter with this man, every moment in his presence, was one more moment that his life could come apart at the seams. But even as he considered leaving, turning on his heel and fleeing for his life and his sanity, he knew it was futile. He would never be allowed to go, not unless his master gave him leave. For despite his fear, despite his doubts, despite the overwhelming desire to run, his fist seemed to rise of its own accord.

  It—he—knocked.

  Rustling sounded from within, and then footsteps. The door opened, revealing only darkness within. But he was there, there was no doubt, lurking in the shadows: his master. Even from the hall the stench of the room was overpowering. Sweat, blood, human waste, burned flesh: the smell of torture. He resisted the urge to cover his nose.

  “Rowan,” his master’s voice growled from the darkness. “You’ve caught me at a bad time.”

  “You sent for me.”

  His master paused, and the air suddenly became more difficult to breathe. Had he spoken out of turn? Was his master angry?

  “So I did,” came the whispered reply. “Come in. I believe we are at a good stopping point, in any case.”

  Rowan blanched at the prospect of entering the torture chamber. The smell of the place was foul enough from the hall; he could only imagine what it would be like within. Not to mention the memories: the most terrible of any he had gained before or since. But he did not have the will to refuse. He stepped across the threshold into the world of darkness, lamenting that covering his nose would no longer do any good. Now he would be lucky not to vomit all over the floor.

  “I would offer you a chair,” his master said with amusement. “But it seems the only one is taken.”

  Rowan’s eyes shifted involuntarily to the silhouette of the man in the chair as his eyes began to adjust to the low light. He still could discern little more than shadows, but it was clear that the man had been knocked unconscious. He slumped forward in the chair, long hair hanging down over his brow, with only the ropes that bound him keeping him anchored.

  Those ropes, likely the same ones that he himself had worn, brought an unpleasant tingle to Rowan’s wrists.

  “Who is he?”

  “You of all people should know better than to ask that question, Rowan,” his master chided. “Better to ask who he will be. But, that is none of your concern. I need you to do something for me.”

  Rowan’s stomach turned with dread. He had known this day would come again, but had hoped it to be much farther off. “What do you wish of me?”

  “You have heard these rumors from the Wilderness, I take it?”

  “The Wilderness is full of rumors, sir. Rebels. The Imperial Guard. Strange happenings in the ghost cities left by the Old World’s fall.”

  “Yes, all troubling in their own way,” his master said. “Though one troubles me more than the rest. Shadow Heart.”

  “Commander Grace Sawyer,” Rowan nodded. “She is the subject of many Great Army mess hall conversations.”

  “Truly,” his master said dryly. “What do they say about her?”

  For the first time since darkening the door of the building, a grin found its way to his face, “Lonely soldiers and a legendary warrior goddess? I’m sure you can imagine what they say.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I can. But the fantasies of enlisted men don’t concern me. What does is that Sawyer has become a very great threat to our future endeavors. She must be eliminated.”

  “The top brass of the Great Army agree with you, sir,” Rowan said. “Grand Admiral Blaine is out there now with his Spectorium, hunting her. The problem is finding her, and getting through her men.”

  “Blaine is a hammer. You are a scalpel. As for finding her, I dare say you’ll manage.”

  “Sir, what you are talking about is a long, protracted mission. I could slip away from my duties with the Ninth for one, maybe two days, but this could take months or more.” And so much the better. Find someone else to do your dirty work.

  “It’s all been arranged,” his master said, turning from him to study the still form of the man in the chair. Rowan couldn’t see the look in his master’s eye, but he remembered it all the same: the cruel fascination, like a human being was a puzzle to be solved.

  “Arranged, sir?”

  “General Dryfus owes me a favor. He has agreed to...lend you to me.” He chuckled. “As if you were not already mine.”

  Rowan’s throat felt suddenly dry. Months outside the city walls, in the dead of winter, tracking a woman who had become somewhat of a legend...there was a very real chance he would not survive this. “Why the sudden need to see her dead? Blaine will get her, eventually.”

  “Perhaps,” his master nodded. “But Blaine is a soldier. I need an assassin. I taught you skills that no one in the World
System possesses, Rowan. I know you have used them to advance your own cause: rivals mysteriously dead or missing; a difficult commanding officer who died in a training exercise. You are good, better than I ever hoped you would be. But you owe me a debt. It’s time you paid it.”

  He felt a spark of hope, “So if I do this for you...”

  “So eager to be free of me, boy?” His master laughed. “You know that will never happen. Even if I were to release you, you would return. We are connected by more than obligation. You would return to me, even if you didn’t want to. Like a son to his father.”

  Rowan gritted his teeth in anger, for he knew it was true. He was bonded to his master. Dependent upon him. And he would be until the master’s death. He had thought of killing him many times, but could never get past the initial strategy of how he would do it. As his master said, it was like plotting the murder of his father. He just couldn’t do it.

  “So that is the what,” his master said, growing suddenly somber. “Now for the why. Silent Thunder has been searching for something this past year, roaming the Wilderness from ruin to ruin in search of clues to unlock one of the most dangerous of all Old World secrets. They must never find it. Kill her, and let Derek Blaine’s hammer fall on the rest of them.”

  “And what of the secret?” Rowan asked. “If I come across evidence...”

  “Destroy it,” his master said. “Some things were never meant to see the light of day. Let it die a rumor in the histories.”

  A groan sounded throughout the small room, and Rowan recoiled. He did not want to be there when the man awoke, did not want to witness the horrors that would be inflicted upon him.

  “And that is our cue,” his master said. “The guards at the west gate of Alexandria have been informed of your departure. From there I suggest you head southwest and track the Spectorium. Eventually, they will lead you to Sawyer.”