Thoughts of what lay ahead plagued his mind. It was filled with worries of whether they could even get into Ney in the first place. Was Ben just supposed to hope that Gal’s fang was enough to gain the Orks’ trust? Skalle hadn’t stated otherwise, and he was clearly the saner of the two brothers. But just because two of their people had granted their approval didn’t mean their entire people would. The more Ben thought about it, the worse he felt.
Adding to Ben’s lack of confidence was the situation at home. Rose was a queen now. She was getting ready to send their people into war. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people would die. Needlessly, too. They needed to save their strength and numbers for the inevitable fight against the Enochians. If Mimir’s simulations were any indication of the Enochians’ abilities, then the humans would need as much as they could take to fight off the invaders. At this point, that left them with very little to develop a sound plan. They would need all the people by their side as possible. That meant making peace with the Ænærians, not war. If they could come to at least a temporary truce in time to recognize their common enemy, then perhaps they would have a chance of keeping their home.
Even the Penteric Alliance and Ænæria together would not be enough. They needed other allies from across the world. Building a relationship with Ney would be a good start, but still, likely not enough. Before Ben left, he’d asked Mimir how the Orks could live so close to a Vault. According to Mimir, the Enochians eliminated civilizations as soon as they became large and powerful enough to be viewed as a threat. Mimir’s best guess was that the Orks were too small a people or too weak for the Enochians to pay them any mind, despite being close to a Vault, just as the Minervians had been before they joined Ænæria. To properly protect their home from the invaders, the Penteric Alliance would need to become more than just an alliance, but a united coalition. One that brought together the nations of the world for a common goal.
Even then, numbers and intelligence wouldn’t be enough. They needed weapons—powerful ones. In all likelihood, he would need to search the entire world for Vaults to use the Enochians’ own technologies against them. Such a task would be impossible to undertake in the time they had left. Nearly three moons ago, Mimir had estimated it would take the Enochians a maximum of two years to reach Earth from their homeworld. That meant they had less than two years to end a war, create a united force, and discover the locations of all the Vaults in time to access them and teach people how to use whatever lay inside. To do that, Ben needed to distribute enough of his blood to various teams with access to more airships than they had. It all seemed rather fantastical and quite improbable.
But perhaps not impossible.
Mimir calculated that, given the factors and variables of which they were currently aware, there was a slight possibility of hope. Ben held onto that. Hope that the Ænærians would see that Ben’s people weren’t the enemy. Hope that Rose could lead their people and survive while he was away.
Hope that the opened Vault in Ney wasn’t a sign that the Enochians were already here.
“Whatcha doing?” Mandi asked from behind. She looked down at him as he lay stargazing in the grass.
“Thinking,” he responded.
“I could tell. There are always gears turning in that head of yours aren’t there?”
Ben sat up and motioned for her to sit to his left, where he could see her. She sat and crossed her legs.
“What’s on your mind now, Limmetrad?”
“Only the fate of the world, as usual, Kabedge.”
Mandi pursed her lips. “Don’t call me that. Just because my great-uncle adopted that name, it doesn’t mean the rest of my family did.”
Ben cracked a grin. “Well, you ought to have a family name, too. Your family is bigger than mine anyway.”
“It wouldn’t go well with my mom’s whole anonymity thing.”
“Fair point.”
“Say, do you know why Takashi gave himself that name? It wasn’t until after he and Gran moved apart and he married Vic. It’s not like they can have kids.”
Ben had often wondered the same, especially after meeting Kabedge’s sister. It was one of the first things he had asked the old man upon returning home. “They actually did have a kid. They both raised Julius after his parents and brother died.”
“We all know how that turned out,” Mandi remarked.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the way he was raised. As far as I know, he got along great with them. They were a little strict when he was young, but that’s just because they were protective. Julius’s whole family died, and I think they both felt that keeping him safe was the best way to honor his family.”
“You’re defending him after all he put you and Rose through?”
“Not at all. But I’m not going to blame his parents either. Julius couldn’t have been luckier than to have been adopted by them. Something else happened to him that poisoned his mind.”
Mandi turned to the lake and was silent for a few seconds. “You still haven’t told me why he gave himself a family name,” she eventually said.
“He started to call himself that after Julius left them. I think it was his way of hoping there was still a family left between them to pass something on to. You don’t know how devastated he was after he found out Julius had died.”
Mandi leaned her head to the side. She didn’t often look at him when she spoke. Even now, well into the night, she wore her hood. Ben used to think it was because of her life lurking in the shadows. Used to be unseen. Recently he thought differently. Maybe she lived that life because she didn’t want to be seen. He’d noticed she touched her burn every time he or Darius mentioned anything about fire. Then she’d draw her hood in closer. She was so secretive, and it was next to impossible to get her to open up. She still didn’t talk about her father’s death in Jordysc.
“I’ll never understand how you can humanize him,” she said, staring at the lake. “After all the death he’s cost.”
Ben frowned. I’m responsible for a lot of death, too. You could argue that I’m the cause of all the death that’s gone on since I went off in search of Rose.
“Because underneath it all, Julius was still human. Whether or not he was a good person is irrelevant, because he meant something to people. And it also helps remind me of what not to become.”
“You could never be like him.”
“I’m not even human. Not fully, anyway.”
“Being human isn’t about what’s in your blood,” she said. She looked a bit more closely in Ben’s direction. “It’s about how you act and treat people. About your morals and values. You’re more human than so many others. More than Randolph.”
“I don’t want to think of it that way.”
“Why not?”
“Because when I think about the fate of our people, I always come to the same conclusion: it’s nearly impossible to make peace with the Ænærians while he’s in charge. Peace is the only way we can hope to have a chance against the true enemy. The more I think about it, the more I start to think there’s a darkness brewing inside of me. I’ve been so frustrated with everything that’s been happening. I’m constantly battling an internal conflict on so many levels. One of those conflicts is about a way to end this war.
“I’ve thought about how powerful I am,” Ben continued. “I’m a long way from mastering my abilities, but I have zero doubt I could take on Randy. With him out of the picture, I can focus on ways to defeat the Enochians.”
“You mean you could kill him to end the war,” Mandi stated.
“Yes.”
Mandi pulled off her boots and stuck her feet into the water next to Ben’s. They watched the water as it rippled and listened to the lonely frog and booming thunder in the distance.
Eventually, Mandi looked at Ben and frowned. “You know, you need a haircut.”
He reached for the back of his head and felt that it reached down below his shoulders. When had it gotten so long? “Not one of the man
y things on my mind, but I’ll be sure to add it to the list.”
Mandi pulled out a knife her cloak. “Why wait? We can do it now.”
Ben rolled his eye and scoffed. “Careful with that. Darius might walk out and think you’re trying to kill me.”
Whatever she was about to say was lost to Ben as he threw his hand over her mouth.
“Shh,” Ben whispered. Despite the noisy night filled with hooting owls, chirping crickets, and the bellowing frog within the lake, Ben could still pick up on the slight snapping from behind. Had anyone else heard the sound, they probably would have thought it was a wild animal and dismissed it. Not so for Ben. What he had always taken for granted as keen instinct when it came to tracking and hunting, was actually another hidden ability of his. As it turned out, some of the earliest manifestations of his powers were the enhancements of his senses. They were also some of the most difficult abilities for him to train, requiring him to meditate on a single sense for hours at a time. Ben found meditating incredibly difficult because turning off his mind was nearly impossible. Fortunately, he’d trained them well enough to pick out the sound of a breaking branch over the din of night, discerning between an animal’s paw and a human’s boot. Within seconds, he was on his feet and facing the direction of the noise.
“What’s wrong,” Mandi said, her voiced muffled behind Ben’s palm.
He nodded his head back to the source of the snapping branch. Suddenly turning around or pointing could’ve alerted the intruders that Ben was onto them.
“We’re being watched,” he whispered into Mandi’s ear. “Don’t say anything. Act natural, like you’re going back to the camp. Then get ready for a fight.”
Mandi nodded slowly. Ben uncovered her mouth, and she moved to put on her boots. She made a slow approach to the camp, and Ben nudged Sierra to follow close by. A small amount of light from the moon and stars crept through a breach in the canopy, making it an ideal place to camp. Otherwise, navigation at night or early morning would have been next to impossible for Mandi and Darius. The marshy woods were blanketed by a thick shroud of darkness. Mandi must have been terrified walking back without being able to see anything that lay in the thick gathering of tall pines and oaks.
Ben didn’t have the same issue with darkness. Just as he could adjust his perception of sound, he could enhance his vision. It would be difficult, though, as sight was Ben’s most difficult sense to adjust. Having a single eye wasn’t the whole issue; rather, it was because sight was the most relied upon sense, and adjusting it was like switching to his non-dominant hand. He squinted his eye and cut himself off from his surroundings. He dimmed the calls of the animals and insects. He calmed the scent of the slow-burning logs, the fresh pollen, and Mandi’s perfume of dandelions and tangerines. The vibrations of the air across his skin and hair, and the heat of the flames and sweat trickling down his face and extremities—all were stilled.
The scene shifted from the black night to a dim monochrome palate. Color had been lost, but he could now see rough outlines in his surroundings. The trees became faded brushes of darkness and the boulders black blotches of ink. But, at least, he could see them.
And the dozen or so moving figures holding shadows outstretched in front of them. Some loomed atop the branches of smaller trees that hung over the campsite, and others were cast behind the trunks. Obscured by the tangles of darkness, there was no way to determine what they were armed with and if they bore any identifying marks or sigils.
Leaves flew into the air and spun with the fury of a windstorm in his trail as Ben darted across the soft, marshy ground faster than a charging boar. In the blink of an eye, he retrieved the Voidsweeper from the trunk of the sun-carriage. The attackers finally responded to the sudden movement and responded with a flurry of arrows from the treetops.
The Voidsweeper’s broken black blade screeched through the air as Ben swung it to his defense and parried the missiles. None had tried to change their position, thinking themselves hidden in the darkness. Ben could see exactly from where the dark shots came, to the archers’ great surprise. And dismay.
With a squeeze around the hilt, the Voidsweeper’s green aura flared to life. Ben shut off his pseudo night vision to avoid being blinded by the weapon’s intense glow. With a flick of his wrist, Ben sent a wide arc of pure green energy in the direction of the trees nearest the archers.
The arc slammed against two trees about a third of the way up their trunks. The nearest tree fell, decapitated. The other lay shook and weakened until the first tree fell into it like a domino. Weakened by the Voidsweeper’s strike, the second tree gave way and quickly followed the first to the ground.
An attacker fell from the tree to the detritus littered ground on their outstretched hands with an audible snap and subsequent wail of pain. Another archer hadn’t reacted so quickly and ended up pinned beneath a swarm of branches and leaves. The third archer, much like the first, fell from the second tree and injured his ankle on the landing.
Darius ran out of his tent looking around the campsite frantically, sword in hand. As soon as he saw Ben holding the Voidsweeper, the ex-Rhion understood. He too squeezed the hilt of his sword, and the edges of the blade emitted a fiery glow. Though nowhere near as powerful as the Voidsweeper, the scimitar that Darius had taken from Fenwin was still a force to be reckoned with. Legate’s Bane, Darius had named it.
Arrows hailed from the trees toward Darius. He rolled across the ground out of the way and met one of the attackers on the ground. They immediately engaged in a sword fight that ended with the enemy’s blade glowing red hot and Darius’s weapons cleaving through it like sap. A slash across the chest and a kick to the gut and Darius had the enemy subdued.
Sierra howled wildly and rushed against a pair of attackers on the ground. Her powerful jaws snapped through their weapons like twigs and slammed them against the base of the tree trunks. She ran to Mandi who had leaped from her tent freshly armed, flicking her hands toward the trees and releasing six throwing knives. They cut through the air straight and seamlessly.
One tried to sneak behind Ben, who had heard every crunch beneath the enemy’s boots, despite how softly the attacker may have tried to walk. Ben pressed his legs against the ground and launched himself upward. The sneaking assailant was caught frozen by Ben’s sudden disappearance. Ben flipped backward, landing just behind the attacker and thrust an open palm at the middle of his back. They fumbled through the air and landed in the pile of fallen trees with a string of curses and groans.
A quick scan of his surroundings revealed that more than half the attackers had been defeated. Darius was nearing the end of another close-quarters duel while Mandi and Sierra were closing in on an archer cowering behind a boulder.
The remaining attackers fled the scene. Ben and the others rounded up the beaten assailants and tied them all around the bases of trees. Their hoods and scarves were removed, their faces revealed—no one they recognized. Just a few men and women with scattered scars and piercings and tattoos. Wastelanders, Ben realized. More than half of them looked younger than Ben and his friends. Most people don’t live long in the wastes, he remembered. Not without civilization to protect them with walls and laws.
Most of the wastelanders remained unconscious while others moaned and sobbed in pain from their burns, sprains, and broken bones. After a splash of some lake water, a few had woken up for questioning. Darius led the interrogation, asking them where they came from and if anyone had sent them. Ænærians were known to send wastelanders to do their dirty work. If they’d been sent to hunt down Ben and his friends, it meant their mission was no longer a secret.
“Ain’t nobody send us to do nothing!” a wastelander roared at Darius. He was one of the oldest in the group—probably late twenties. He had blond hair covered in sweat and grime, a swollen eye from the battle, a metal rod punctured above his right brow, and he was missing half his ear. “We saw the smoke of your fire earlier and grouped up looking for a score.”
&nbs
p; “They’re just bandits,” Mandi said. She was sitting back by the sun-carriage, sharpening the knives she’d used in the fight. “I’m surprised we hadn’t run into any already.”
“And y’all are just damn civs, talking down on us,” the wastelander replied.
“But aren’t you bandits?” Ben asked. “After all, you were trying to rob us.”
Another wastelander chuckled. “It ain’t stealing if it’s out in the wastes. Everything out here’s fair game.”
Darius turned toward her, glowering. “I wasn’t speaking to you. Unless you have something useful to say, I suggest you stay quiet.”
She smirked, her pierced lip curling upwards. “Like we’d be scared of you three. We noticed how none of y’all killed us. Ain’t got in you, I bet.”
Ben watched Darius’s fist clench. Before letting things get out of hand, he thought of something better. Very briefly, Ben let his vision flicker to red, allowing him to completely unleash his full powers. It also left him at his most vulnerable, for he could quickly spiral out of control. Then he reined them in, and his vision returned to normal. The sudden change in energy, as Mimir had described to Ben, transmitted a message to Sierra. That’s how she’d always been able to track him, regardless of how long and far they’d been separated. She immediately rushed to his side and growled, her fangs baring mere inches away from the wastelander’s face.
Pointy Lips suddenly changed her expression from arrogant to downright terrified. There was a primal sense of fear that most people had when faced with a creature as large and ferocious as Sierra. They’ll respond to that.
Darius turned to a third conscious wastelander, who couldn’t have been older than thirteen. He was a boy with scar riddled face and metal piercings in his nose and all the way down his ears. Darius squatted to eye level with the wastelander and looked at him coldly.
The Heir of Ænæria Page 17
