Whatever world materializes from the ashes of the old one, these kind of people don’t need to be inhabitants.
“Blanchard, see to the woman. The rest of us will form a perimeter. If they’re able to move, we’ll head back to the others courtesy of these vans,” Krandle says.
Blanchard kneels next to the first woman, looking for injuries. As she answers his questions, her expression reflects a measure of fear and shock. She watches his ministrations, her gaze wandering down to the knife secured to his leg. Narrowing her eyes, her frightened look changes to one of anger, with the red glow of hate hiding just behind.
“Is that sharp?” she asks, nodding toward the six-inch blade.
“Uh, yeah,” Blanchard says.
“Can I borrow it?”
“Um, what for?”
“For something.”
“Chief, she wants to borrow my knife.”
Krandle looks over and sees a look of vengeance hidden deep within. He has an idea of what the hours may have held for the women, and understands what her request will probably entail. Glancing at the bodies, he knows the bandits have long since departed this world and won’t feel a thing. He feels torn between desecrating a body and the understanding that the woman needs something to gain a measure of herself back.
“Give it to her,” Krandle says.
After a couple of women enact their vengeance upon the bodies, they team helps gather supplies from the bandits’ storages, including their weapons. They load them into the vans for the civilians to use on their journey. The bodies are left lying on the forest floor, their blood congealing and soaking into the dirt.
The thanks are unending as the men and women are reunited. Krandle has never been good at the emotional things, so he just nods and gives the expected responses, wanting nothing more than to leave. The women are physically well for the most part, but he’s sure the emotional trauma will haunt them the rest of their lives.
With the sun rising higher in the morning sky, Krandle hands the keys of the vans to the group, giving them directions north to Olympia where Captain Walker is fighting back against the night runners and building a sanctuary for survivors.
They hit the rolling surf, the chaotic water soaking the men aboard before the raft noses up and over. The waves turn into breakers, Speer timing it so they don’t roll up on a cresting wave. Powering down the backside, they motor through Pacific swells. Ahead, a dark menacing shape slowly rises from the surface, clearly one of the ocean’s predators. Speer drives the zodiac onto the barely awash deck. Stowing their gear into the locker, they make their way below decks. The USS Santa Fe submerges as quietly as it surfaced, the ocean once more just an endless series of waves.
A Debt Repaid
A Tales of the Prodigy Story
Tim Marquitz & J. M. Martin
Gryl crouched on the roof’s ledge, knees long since gone numb. His fingers played at the rope in his hands of their own volition, plucking at the frayed strings as he waited, eyes on the dark alley below. He huddled inside his cloak and bit back a curse. Spring had come to Amberton weeks before, hints of green returning to the woods sitting sentry north of the walls, but winter had yet to surrender. A frigid breeze cut through the narrow streets once the sun retired, stirring the trash into a frenzy and chasing all but the most foolish or entitled of citizens inside.
It was the former that brought Gryl back to the city for the first time since he’d laid Korbitt low in his quest to rescue the Xenious girl, Vai. Memories stirred in the wake of the warlord’s name, the sweet tang of his fear, teeth shattering to make way for righteous steel. Gryl had left his mark in both blood and terror, hence his clandestine watch atop the roof. Even with all the time between, the people of Amberton would remember the Avan prodigy who’d left more than a dozen bodies littering the floor of the Broken Lizard.
The town had scrambled in the wake of Korbitt’s death, or so Gryl had heard, their illicit leadership so brutally and publicly cut down. The void left behind threw the city into chaos until the empress herself took notice and sent her knights to secure its peace. Their presence was the true reason Gryl was here. In these times of war, all traffic leading to the Southern Reaches, to the heart of Shytan, was routed through Amberton first.
A sudden rush of noise broke the silence — giggles and soft platitudes spilling from an opened door, the clink of well-earned coin — telling him his target had left the lurid embrace of the brothel that stood two buildings down. Boots scraping awkwardly against the weathered cobbles of the nearby street set fire to Gryl’s veins. He stretched to chase away the stiffness, reveling in the caterpillar of pops that reverberated down his spine, while he tightened his grip upon the rope. The time had come at last.
Even from the roof, Gryl caught whiffs of perfume and musky incense wafting off the man, remnants of his excesses laid bare by the traitorous wind. He appeared around the corner several moments after his scent had marked his approach. Gryl smiled with recognition, the silver he’d paid the local boys to learn the overseer’s routine well spent. And as foretold, Jaret Gailbraith, Mayor of Amberton — if only in title since the knights had come to town — stumbled off the walk and, secure in his safety by dint of royal decree, staggered drunkenly down the alleyway without so much as a cautious glance.
Gryl swallowed a chuckle at Gailbraith’s misplaced confidence. The prodigy had come to Amberton to tweak the nose of the empress. One more misdeed would hardly tip the scales against him given what he intended. She could only want him so dead.
He checked his snare one last time, ensuring it was levered about the nearby chimney, and set his ambush into motion. The rope slithered through his fingers and struck home, the noose cinching tight with a satisfying hurrrk. Gryl wasted no time reeling in his squirming catch. Hand over hand, with easy motions to keep from snapping the mayor’s neck, he hauled Gailbraith up the wall until the man’s purpled face appeared above the ledge, his feet swinging three stories above the alley. The man clasped at the rooftop with desperate hands, fingers digging grooves in the aged mortar between the stones, finally managing to secure a tentative hold with the prodigy’s help. Gryl leveraged the rope around his elbow, loosening its hold just enough so Gailbraith could breathe, and leaned in close.
“Scream and I drop you.”
The mayor’s eyes widened into black pools. Hood peeled back and skullcap set aside, Gryl’s scars gleamed in the pale moonlight, his pedigree on full display. Gailbraith offered a shallow nod at seeing them, choking himself with the effort, but he remained silent otherwise.
“Where is he?”
“Wh-who?” the mayor asked, the word little more than a ragged gasp.
Gryl let the rope slide through his fingers a few inches before tightening his grip again. Gailbraith gasped as gravity threatened to pull him down despite his grip on the ledge. The barest scent of urine tainted the air until the breeze swept it away. His frantic heartbeat fluttered at his temple.
“Bal Surathanan, the slaver,” Gryl answered. “Don’t make me ask again.”
“The… the knights have him,” Gailbraith offered, only hesitating for an instant. “At the Lizard. One of the rooms above the bar.”
Gryl bit back a groan. He’d seen enough of the tavern his last trip through town. “And the woman who was with him?”