by C Cato
“If I’m not back in a day, don’t wait for me. Get Elise to safety. Head back over the mountains and get to the Vault.”
The faces of her fellow soldiers were grim. She knew they would do what she asked, but they wouldn’t be happy about it.
“Don’t worry guys,” she said, shoving her crossbow, sword, and quiver through the hole. “I’ll be in and out. A little flitter and I’ll be back.”
“Like the deadly Pixie you are,” said Soren. He didn’t muster a smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Risa
Risa armed herself and waited just outside the cave until it grew dark. No reason to tempt fate and expose herself. She followed the creek in the same direction she and Ditre had until she came to the trees. There weren’t many options to find a path out since the river that used to be in the gully had cut a solid path through the rock leaving it almost shear on both sides.
It would be nice to find a nice flat plane somewhere, instead of all these fucking cliffs.
Priority was to find them a way out. Even a goat trail would be good enough.
Are there even goats in the Cascades?
She kept her arm stiff, ready to raise and fire. Those little weapons were a godsend. Light and easy to reload, the small crossbows still packed a punch, without taking up her hands. Handy. The quiver could hold fifty of the small bolts, but she only had thirty left. Each one would have to count.
She kept her ears trained on the sounds around her, creeping on light feet. A stomp of something heavy on the ground and the jingle of metal on metal reached her. Seconds after, hushed speaking. It was too far for her to make out the actual words, but enough to follow to the origin.
Fires dotted a clearing. Horses tied at the tree line, blocked Risa’s view of the camp from that angle. Two women stood guard; their postures lax.
Risa scanned the area for somewhere to hide and listen, but there weren’t many options. She circled through the trees finding another set of sentries, and a clear line of sight to the camp.
“How did we get stuck with this?” said one of the women standing guard. She pulled a heavy fur-lined cloak tighter around her shoulders.
Elise could use something like that.
“Quit bitching. I’d rather this than one of the more hazardous assignments. We just have to keep watch for a couple of days and then we can get home.”
“I’d feel more comfortable if we had one of the mutants to track them down.”
Her companion shuddered. “I wouldn’t. They never talk or make a sound. Just look at you with those scary black eyes. Creepy.”
“Yeah. I hope Mother Superior gets bored with them soon so we can just kill them and be rid of them.”
Risa’s stomach tightened. They had to be talking about Keet. That meant there were more of them. The idea of those people suffering at the hands of these women caused a small-scale revolt in her gut.
“The other patrols will probably have more luck. This is the hardest pass to get to, besides how far can they get without horses and supplies?”
How far indeed? Risa waited another hour while the women talked about the latest petty gossip from home, a pair of boots one of them got commissioned, and whether the one named Zola would go all the way with her love interest. Risa had to stifle a yawn to keep from giving her position away.
She left them to move to a different part of camp, counting the number of women there. Twelve including the sentries. Not the worst odds, but not the best for her either. Risa estimated she could kill three or four of them with throwing knives and the crossbow before they roused the camp and came after her. Still not ideal.
Circling back to the chatty sentries, she decided to start there. Moving far enough away from the camp to avoid direct exposure by firelight, Risa ran between two trees. She did it twice before one of the women noticed her. She gritted her teeth. There was nothing she hated more than incompetence.
“Did you see something?” asked Zola.
“Nope. Just trees and more trees.”
“I think I saw something. C’mon.”
“You know if we leave our post, we’ll be scrubbing toilets for a month,” whined her friend.
“Not if we actually find something.” Zola drew her sword and stepped out of the warm circle of light from the camp with her reluctant friend.
In the dark, Risa had the advantage. She stalked further into the woods, making noise to direct them where she wanted and then silently moved around them. With a quiet click, she put a bolt in place on her arm. There would only be time for one shot. She drew one of the throwing knives from her belt. The women chose that moment to split up.
Fucking bitches can’t do anything right!
She followed the one named Zola and made a trilling bird sound. The woman whirled in surprise, and Risa fired, scoring a shot in her throat. She died, eyes round with surprise. Risa then followed the loud tromping steps of her friend. The good thing about their lack of skill was she had time to load another bolt. Making short work of the second sentry, she retrieved her bolts from the bodies and returned to camp to deal with two other guards. They were equally as easy to dispatch. Then the odds were a little more favorable.
Watching the women closely, she tried to determine who was the leader, but without knowing insignia there was no way to tell. No one saluted and everyone referred to everyone else by name. In the end, she randomly picked her first victim. She got off two bolts and took down three with her knives before they had time to rally and come after her.
A laugh bubbled in her chest, and she bit the inside of her cheek. These were prey, and she was the predator that would take them down and devour them. She was the thing they should fear in the dark.
The four remaining women fanned out to try and circle around Risa through the trees. Tactical mistake. After all, she could see them.
While she waited for them to spread out a bit more, she reflected on their lack of military strategy. Maybe it wasn’t their fault. If there were as few people as Celene had said them then there wouldn’t be a need for military tactics.
Silent as a ghost, she moved through the trees and slit the throats of the remaining Valkyrie until there was only one left. Aiming with care, she shot a bolt, piercing a lung. The Valkyrie went down with a gurgled cry.
Blood coated her lips, and each breath was a harsh rasp. She still tried to raise the sword in her hand.
Risa stepped on her wrists, trapping them on the ground and lowered herself to her knees, pressing weight fully on her chest and arms. The Valkyrie moaned. Risa knew the woman couldn’t see her in the dark, so there wasn’t a point in delaying. It’s not like she’d see the amused expression on her face.
“I know this hurts,” she said, tapping the bolt.
The Valkyrie arced off the ground and ground her teeth together.
“It’s okay to scream. No one will hear you. I have a few questions and then I’ll send you on to meet your friends,” said Risa, a friendly lilt in her tone. She bent forward until she was almost in kissing distance.
Risa’s prey shuddered, and her eyes grew wide. “Please,” she wheezed. “You can’t.”
Risa raised her eyebrows and sat up a little straighter. “Oh? Why is that?”
“W-W-Women… sacred. Must—” her breathing became more labored and there was a heavy rattle. There wasn’t going to be much time for questions. “P-Preserve for cure.”
“The fuck, you say?”
The Valkyrie struggled to say something else, but Risa was out of patience.
“Look bitch, you and your little friends attacked us without provocation and then you killed some really sweet people—one of them a woman, by the way—and took my friend hostage or something. I’m giving exactly zero fucks about your beliefs. So, let’s get this over quick before you drown in your own blood. How many patrols are searching for us?”
Coughing up a bubble of blood, she shook her head. A tear trailed down her face.
Risa slammed the door
on any emotion, any sympathy she might feel. Sympathy would not save Sonya. “Are you shaking your head because you don’t know, or because you don’t want to tell me? Really think before you answer, I have no problem making your last minutes on Earth excruciating.”
“Five,” she forced out, along with a gush of tears.
“Very good,” said Risa, patting her shoulder on the uninjured side. “Are there any more surprises I should be aware of?”
The woman’s eyes began to dim, her breaths were short, the gap between growing longer. Her head barely moved with her shake. “Please.”
Risa leaned back on her heels. “Fine. A promise is a promise.”
Unsheathing her sword, she sliced it across the dying woman’s throat. Her body convulsed, and Risa rose from the ground with the force of her contortion before slamming back down. She waited until the life had left her eyes and got up. Not sparing the corpse a second glance, after she wiped her sword on the dead woman’s clothes, she sheathed it and approached the horses. There were more of them than they would need, but there were plenty of supplies, so she decided to use a couple to carry things.
“It’s a shame you don’t come with an operating manual. You were not covered in Basic,” she said to the first horse in the string. The mare flicked her ears back and tossed her head. “I should have taken Sarge up on those riding lessons he offered me, back in the day.”
Risa took her time going through the belongings in the camp, finding several sets of spare clothes that would work for her and with a little work, for Elise. She gathered up all the cloaks and piled them on top of one of the horses designated as “the packing one”. Useful weapons were gathered. A sword for Sarge, a dagger for each of them, along with crossbows and bolts for the men.
More digging turned up a large amount of jerky, dried fruit, and slightly stale bread. She packed it all.
Horses stomped and whinnied as she worked to tie them together in a train. A few times she feared for the safety of her feet, but eventually they all fell into line and calmed down.
“Now, comes the fun part,” she said, gazing up at the intimidatingly tall horse she’d chosen to ride. To be fair, they were all tall, so this one was as good as any. The stirrup stared her in the face, mocking her as it dangled. “Why short? I could have been blessed with the family mole problem, but no, I got short instead.”
After jumping a couple of times and almost knocking the horse over, she went in search of a log. She found one in the camp and dragged it over. Overcompensating, she almost flew over the other side. “Fucking horses!”
Once stable, she gave the horse a small nudge with her heels and breathed a sigh of relief when it moved. Holding the reins in both hands, she prayed for her ass as the animal took off at a trot. Calling ahead, her team were waiting by the time she arrived.
“Any trouble,” asked Soren, flicking the drying blood on her clothes.
“Define trouble.”
“You know, Sarge,” said Soren, untying the string behind her. “We really should have gone with something more badass for her, like Viper or Killer.”
“Too obvious,” said Cole, the ghost of a smile haunting his face. “Pixie leaves ‘em guessin’.”
“I could be Medusa or something like that,” she pleaded.
Cole pulled a cloak down from the pile and wrapped Elise in one and grabbed one for himself. Placing the girl in the front of the saddle, he climbed up behind her with the ease of someone who had spent their life there.
Risa snorted. “Fucking cowboy.”
“Medusa wouldn’t make any sense,” said Ditre, settling into his saddle.
Risa threw her hands in the air, and her horse danced sideways. “Shit!”
Cole chuckled and clicked his tongue to move the horse.
Risa did her best to keep up. “You don’t even know where you’re going,” she called after him.
“Which is why you’ll be here to give directions,” he said, calmly.
They gave the campsite-turned-graveyard a wide berth, not wanting Elise to see it. It wasn’t long before the dense trees opened into a rocky, shallow valley. Another range of the Cascades were visible over the top of the trees on the other side.
“Had to pick the long way ‘round, did you,” said Soren, drolly.
“Fuck off, Ren. At least we aren’t being shot at.”
“Really, Risa? You had to go and jinx us,” he said, scrunching his face.
She rolled her eyes and sobered. “Do you think Cole is going to be okay?”
“Maybe? We’re kind of in new territory here. Have you ever seen Sarge in love before?”
“No. He had some fuck buddies here and there, but nothing serious in the time that I’ve known him.”
“You would know… since you’re as old as dirt and all.”
Risa flipped him the bird. Not gifted in the height department, but she’d been gifted with never-ending skin elasticity and the perky tits of a teen. Very few ever guessed she was a year away from fifty. “Did you know about all that stuff Ian said in the video?”
“I didn’t even know him and Ian were fucking. I always wondered why he ignored my blatant passes. It was starting to give me a complex.”
Risa ignored him. His long-standing interest in Cole wasn’t news to her. She often had to listen to him bitch about it when he was in his cups. “Yeah, well we need to get her back. I don’t think he’ll ever recover if something happens to her, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in this fucked up world without my team. All of them.”
Soren moved his horse closer and offered his knuckles. She fistbumped him absentmindedly, retreating to her own thoughts.
They made it across the valley without incident and were approaching the next grouping of trees when their luck ran out. Risa heard the pounding of hooves and turned in her saddle.
“What’s up?” said Soren, stopping next to her. Ditre and Cole had moved ahead of them.
Twisting in her saddle, she gazed across the expanse of the valley they’d just crossed. “How far would you say that distance is?”
He squinted his eyes. “Mile and a half, give or take. Why?”
Riders poured from the trees, pushing their horses to a full gallop. “Now, I know the range of my hearing, and we’re fucked,” she said grimly. “Cole! Deets! Haul ass. Company!”
She dug her heels in her horse’s side, and it took off with a scream. Trees flew by like a demented video game. To avoid oncoming branches, she ducked low to the horse’s neck. Up ahead, Cole had the lead with Ditre behind. She fell in line with them.
The trees had reasonable space between them, but it still felt like she was navigating an obstacle course. Several times she scraped against the rough bark, making her grateful she was wearing leather.
Chancing a glance over her shoulder, she swallowed as the wall of white riders kept pace with them. “They’re on us, Cole. We may need to keep them busy so you can get away.”
“We?” said Soren.
“Do you wanna miss all the fun?”
“No!” said Cole. “Stay together. If we fight, we’ll do it together. Elise can ride, she’ll get away if she needs to.”
“Pick up the pace, old lady,” taunted Ditre.
It worked. With encouraging words and some well-timed flicks of the reins, she spurred horse to go faster and found that if she didn’t hold the reins so tight, the horse was better at avoiding the trees. She rode through puddles of light as the sun shed feeble light through the ever-present storm clouds. There would be no hiding. Her horse blasted snorts of air and was lathered with sweat, but the women didn’t let up.
The trees stopped abruptly, opening to an expanse of tall grass. Hulking rusted forms dotting the area. Old trucks. Cole’s horse made a shrill sound and reared up suddenly on two legs. Risa was glad he knew what he was doing because he managed to stay in the saddle.
From behind one of the trucks, a figure appeared, but not alone. There were more. They were all dres
sed in black, but heads and shoulders obscured by black cloth. Cole pulled his sword, but the figure waved him through. When she and Soren passed their group, the strangers all faced the oncoming assault.
Pulling hard on the leather straps, she forced her horse to stop so she could see what was going on. They were all armed with crossbows and they fired together. A wave of women and horses crashed to the ground as the barbs found their mark. Jumping down from her own mount, Risa slapped a bolt to her arm and fired at another charging Valkyrie. The onslaught was too much for the Valkyrie. A heavy horn sounded a retreat. Twenty lay dead on the ground—or close to it—and another ten rode away.
Risa lowered her arm and turned to the person standing beside her. It was hard to tell if it was a man or woman with all the fabric coverings. “Now, are you going to tell us who you are?”
He—definitely a he—pulled the cloth off his face, which was set in an indignant scowl. “We just saved you. You should be telling us who you are!”
“Uncle Ray!” Elise, much better with manners than the two of them, solved the problem for them.
The man, Ray, blinked at the child. “Monkey, what are you doing here? Where’s your mommy and daddies?”
Her giant green eyes glazed over with fresh tears, and Ray bent to pick her up.
He turned his hostile gaze back to Risa, and she took an involuntary step back.
“You have a lot to answer for.”
“Elise, you vouch for this douche?” asked Risa, pointing to the man.
Cole and the others came to stand with her. No one had drawn a weapon, but the tension was thick enough to ice skate over.
“What’s a douche?” asked Elise.
Soren made a noise that was part sputter, part snort.
“We’ll save that lesson for later. For now, let’s just find out who your friend is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Cole
“I believe the lady asked you a question,” said Cole, edging closer to the stranger and the little girl he was coming to think of as his own. When he was close, he held out his hand. “Come here, baby girl.”
