Last time, a relaxing dream of a coming of age birthday broke and the reality of a new chaotic situation took hold for Lord Crom and the boys. In the first chapters we learned that life in the Skirts isn’t easy for anyone. Now we’ve been introduced to a noble boy and a prophecy of impending doom for his family. It’s not all cupcakes and rainbows for those outside of the Skirts either. What the heck is going on with his brother? What was he trying to warn him about? Read on to find out!
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Part 6: Decker
I detested the Skirts. Nothing good was ever born of the place. Not a single good woman. Not a single man of worth. Just cannon fodder and breach pluggers.
They had their right to exist, same as all of us. The problem was that two-hundred years worth of societal evolution had turned them into Neanderthals that knew how to use tools. Nothing else.
Then, there was that stupid prophecy. Every high and middle noble, and every Priest sworn to the oath, had heard it a thousand times over. Not that it made any sense.
“From the waste will come the new King, slayer of the old, and from his heart will spring that to reveal the untold. Twelve years you will have. Twelve left to make peace. In twelve years you will gain that which you cherish least.”
And because of some hokey poem written in red print on some dark screen, I was stuck in the place I cherished least. What the hell was there even to cherish? The apocalypse happened, but everyone living in the Skirts pretended like it was Tuesday.
The land held only ruins and crops– dead things that did not avail me. I cared not for the past, and I could hunt or forage my own food. Yet, somehow, I was always the one sent to that wretched place, like a siren song that fate sung into my mind inside a house of mirrors.
There the scorching mid-day sun had a way of melting you before any physical sign made itself known. Someone’s ancestor had played with the wrong type of voo-doo and cursed all of us with the recoil. We live in the tally of our forebearers’ mistakes.
The rats stuck working the fields often strung bottles of water around their chests like those old photographs of marines wrapped in grenades. I doubt that any of them would know a marine if they saw one– or a grenade for that matter.
You see, back during the calamity, the wealthy designed the perfect parachute for themselves. What better way was there to escape the Armageddon they created than by hoarding the few supplies that remained afterward.
They live in their so-called tech-cities and follow a king-shit to survive. I call that trading liberty for a warm bed and turning a blind eye to atrocity for a hot meal. No one would ever find me bartering my freedom for security.
Strength was all that mattered. The cards were already played. If you didn’t have something, no amount of luck or divine intervention was going to get it for you.
Screw the thought of weakness. Screw that sun and screw that system. If I could have gone back in time, I’d have told them to inject me with as many nanites as my body could handle.
“You’re doing it again,” a voice hit me in deep thought.
“Shut up,” I quickly replied without thinking of a better response.
“I am just making an observation,” it was soft, moving closer to me from the direction of the barn beyond the fence where I was perched. “Decker, you need to relax. This will not take much longer,” it said as a canteen of water collected from the pump at the barn landed beside my feet.
“I told you Reaper, don’t call me Decker,” I angrily snatched the canteen from the ground.
I’d had the injection, just like everyone else recruited. I didn’t need water like the farm hands, but everyone had to drink– even a tech-enhanced super soldier fighting to find winds of fortune.
He sat on the half-chopped stump of a tree beside me. The horizon was nothing but tall grass and late-summer bugs. It was that yellow grass, the kind that cried for a storm and then burned with the first strike of lightning.
“I think they’re close,” he shoved a long blade of the grass in his mouth and started chewing. It pissed me off every time he did that. Some guys did it and you’d chalk it up to muscle memory. They’d lived in the sticks their whole lives and didn’t know any better.
That wasn’t my partner. He was born high, into a coat of fur and maids waiting, from the bosom of glory. Everything was his from the first time he opened his mouth and cried. He did not grow up wanting, nor did he grow up learning to chew grass to quell hunger pain.
He wasn’t high strung, though, like a lot of the highborn. He saw the Skirts for the first time and found the same hatred for the system I’d held my entire life. He understood that he was born high from the labor of the men that knew real wanting and real pain.
He was also well aware that the leaders in the cities weren’t the only ones at fault for the situation. So many would curse fate, when a little effort could turn the tide. The rats had an equal share of blame for the circumstances they’d inherited.
“Oh yeah, what makes you think that, Reaper?,” I said because he hated his battle name. Every kid gets one when they’re taking the second test. He despised it– almost as much as he despised his surname.
“I can just feel them,” he said calmly, but clearly agitated. He didn’t show emotions. They just permeated outwardly like an invisible fog constantly surrounding him. To look at his face was to see a statue, but to stand beside him was to feel human.
“Think you’ll be able to kill him?” I don’t know why I asked. No one would be able to answer that question.
“It is time to start moving again,” he ignored it and threw my bag toward me. It landed a few feet in front of me. He didn’t wait for me to collect it before he started walking.
A Priest travels light. A chosen– even lighter. We set out in four-man teams, each with one small bag to hold whatever we thought might make the mission easier.
I usually loaded up on extra weapons and ammo. Old style projectile guns didn’t work on coordinated enemies– the injections made them obsolete. However, out in the wasteland no one had heard of a nanite, let alone been injected with thousands of them.
“Hey,” I called out as I grabbed my bag and ran to catch up, “you aren’t goin’ to wait for Buzz or Raze?”
“They’ll find us,” he said with the same cold stare forward he always had, “if they don’t, they’re of no use to me.”
He was as callous as ever. The man would kill his own father if it suited his purposes. He wouldn’t hesitate to leave one or all of us behind.
I never cared that much about it. I was a simple man. Allow me the chance to do what I’m good at and offer me the company of a good woman. What more could anyone really need?
So, I let Reaper worry about the fate of humanity. I just tagged along and collected the benefits. The system was broken, but it wasn’t my job to fix it. A rat doesn’t have to be a rat, afterall; they just don’t know any better.
As we walked the old broken and sunburned road through the fields of the gods last great judgement, I started to whistle. It was an old tune my mother used to hum before she died. She’d learned it from my father.
She said he was always whistling it when he came home from work. I wasn’t sure what he actually did for a living, but we lived decently. I was tested when I was ten, after I got into a fight at school with a kid trying to steal my ball.
Mr. Danner said, “If you want to fight, you might as well do it for the good of society.” I will never forget the grin he had on his face when I scanned blue. He was wearing a stupid green and red striped sweater in the middle of May, like Christmas was a week away.
Screw him. Screw that sweater. And screw that damned system.
“You’re doing it again,” Reaper said with that same stoic look and his cold stare forward.
“What’s it to ya?” I retorted.
“They’re back,” he raised his hand and motioned forward.
Buzz and Raze were about thirty yards in front of us on the road. Raze was holding a beaten up scrommer that looked like someone had taken their boot to it a few times.
We didn’t have any use for scrommers. The nanites helped regulate our body heat in all but the most extreme environments. They enhanced our vision in the darkest of nights.
“Hey, shit eaters,” I called out, “Captain Thoughtless here about left your asses behind again. What’s with the scrommer?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Raze replied, “decided to do some scouting.”
Raze was probably one-hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. Her hair was cut short so it wouldn’t be a hindrance in a fight. She had a scar on her left shoulder that stretched down to her elbow from a burn she received the day she got her nickname.
She was a rat and was taken from a rat town to the north of Eulanta. I couldn’t recall its name. The chief D’slecter didn’t take kindly to the lack of reception the Priests received while they were in her town.
So, he ordered the entire place set ablaze, to teach them a lesson. He kept yelling “Raze the entire place,” as she begged for mercy.
Mercy wasn’t something the Priests were known to offer. For about two days after that her face looked like a broken piece of glass, and the only word she said was, “Raze.” She said it over and over again.
“I followed her out,” Buzz added as he was rummaging through his bag.
Buzz was about five inches shorter than most sixteen year old men, but he refused to let it hold him back. He was one of the fiercest fighters I’d met. His size became his advantage. His ability caught everyone off guard. Who’d have thought that guy would be a Shield.
He was a middle-born commoner from Tollton. Joining the Priests gave his family added prestige, which made his ambitious father happy. It was forbidden for us to see our families after the injection, but Buzz relished the idea of his father hosting parties in his honor.
His nickname came after Raze’s town was burned down. Buzz tried to console her, much to the chagrin of the chief D’slecter. When he was done beating Buzz for the act of caring about a comrade, Buzz couldn’t stop making the noise when he breathed.
At first, none of us wanted to call him that. We weren’t terrible kids. But, Buzz took it on as a badge that he wanted to shine up with great deeds.
“Reaper, I found this,” Buzz pulled a dagger from the bag after searching for another minute. I didn’t know what he kept in there, but it was always annoying how long he’d spend digging through it.
Reaper winced at the utterance of his own name, but took the dagger from Buzz. It had gold etchings that only the highborn were allowed. An inlay on the guard read Crommy of Collinton, and four notches had been dug into the steel of the blade.
“He’s already killed four,” Reaper said under his breath and then handed the dagger back to Buzz for safe keeping.
“They’re close,” Raze added and threw the scrommer onto the ground.
“Closer than you think,” Reaper replied, slowly looking around.
I hadn’t noticed at first, but we’d walked into the perfect spot for an ambush. The sharp grass densely grew in patches to our left. Boulders and old vehicle wrecks littered the other directions. The only way we couldn’t be hit was from behind, the way we’d come.
There was a chill in Reaper’s words. His eyes closed and when they opened they shone a bright blue that slowly faded. His irises vanished first. Then his body seemed to be translucent. Finally there was nothing but a faint shimmer and the sound of his steps as he repositioned himself.
The entire process took only a couple of seconds. It always amazed me. All I’d received from my injection was added strength, speed, and durability. The nanites had turned Reaper into the god of assassins.
Raze crouched low to the ground and closed her eyes. Sight could be fooled a lot easier than hearing or smell. And she smelled something very distinct.
“Someone’s nervous,” she told us as she clenched her fists and looked toward a rusted Buick about ten yards from us, “I can smell his sweat.”
As she said it, a thin, lanky boy jumped from the other side of the car. He was yelling, “I fucking knew you’d get us killed, Sweaty!” The car rocked and squeaked as he pushed off of it.
The boy charged toward us, his hands balled into a fist so tightly they were bleeding. He looked like he’d already been through it. Scars riddled his body.
“They’re spies,” Buzz yelled out. As he did so, thousands of small metal shards left his mouth and surrounded himself and Raze like they had been engulfed by a swarm of insects. “Look how they’re dressed. Like us.”
The boy swung at Raze. She dodged, though she didn’t need to. Buzz’s nanite’s blocked the punch. Raze countered with an uppercut that hit the boy in his ribs.
He coughed up blood, but started laughing at her. His feet slid back in the dirt and he dropped to the ground. His hand braced the fall and used the momentum to spin and knock Buzz off his feet.
As Buzz’s nanites caught him and redirected him back to an upright position, they also blocked another punch thrown by the boy. “You guys are good, I’ll fucking give you that,” he yelled. Raze launched a kick that caught him in his side. He laughed louder, like he was having the time of his life.
Another boy ran from the same direction as the first one. He was bigger, heavier. He charged toward the first boy and knocked him directly into Raze.
The first boy yelled out again, “That’s how it’s done, Dozer!” His laughter echoed off the nearby boulders. He was like a wild animal.
The hit from the one he called Dozer pushed him into Raze and past Buzz’s defense. She yelled out, unable to brace her fall. As they collapsed to the ground the first boy landed a few more hits into her side.
I started to run toward them, but a third boy came into view from the direction of the sharp grass on our other side. He was rushing us with large rocks in his hands. He was tall and chiseled, like sculpted from the earth itself. I couldn’t see his face. His hood was covering everything.
Just as we were about to make contact, I heard Reaper again. “Stop!” he called out. I could hardly hear him over the commotion of the fight and the laughing of the first boy. “Stop, or your leader dies,” he said loudly and calmly.
He had reappeared beside the car. His arm was wrapped around the neck of a smaller boy whose hood was also up. Reaper had one dagger pressed against his throat and another pointing toward his heart.
“No,” a frightened girl’s voice screeched from on top of one of the boulders beside Reaper, “you stop. Or he dies too.”
She was holding a dagger aimed at the back of another boy, dressed in red leather pants that were tucked into his boots and a bright colorful robe. He was wearing a purple scarf that wrapped around him a few times and hung to his knees.
“Go on, girl. Do it,” Reaper taunted her coldly, “let’s see if you care more for this one than we do that one.”
Everyone had stopped fighting to wait for the end of the standoff. The lanky boy that had charged at us first watched with a look of utter disappointment. He spit blood onto the ground and his swollen lip took up a third of his face, but his eyes were begging for more.
I knew the Skirts were harsh, but I didn’t expect this kind of fight from anyone there, let alone a bunch of kids. The heavier one sat down. He’d started crying. I didn’t know why. He looked like he belonged in a library in the city, not on a dead road in a dead land.
“It’s fine, Bren,” the boy Reaper was holding said, “he’s not going to kill me.”
“I’ll drop mine, when he drops his,” she answered.
Reapers nose started bleeding. Slowly at first, but then harder. It covered his lips and pooled at his jaw before dripping onto the shoulder of the boy he held hostage. His face hadn’t changed though. Still a cold stare.
I looked to Buzz. His nose was also bleeding. Not from a hit. The nanites give us power, but they’re paid well for it. And they take payment in blood.
“Squad, back out,” Reaper ordered us as he released the boy and shoved him against the car. He backed away slowly, toward us, never showing the boy his back.
Since I’d known him this was the first time he’d ever ordered a retreat. We’d seen worse odds. We were winning the fight. It didn’t make sense.
“Boss–” Raze started to speak, but was cut off by Reaper.
“You heard me,” he said as he made it to me, “back to the barn. We’ll find them again.”
I looked at the boy I’d been running toward. I couldn’t see much beyond the shadow of his hood, but I noticed a scar on his face. I didn’t see where it started, or where it ended. If everyone in the Skirts were like this group, gods help the cities if these kids ever rebelled.
As quickly as it all started, it had ended. We did as Reaper ordered. We retreated the way we’d come.
He looked over his shoulder a few times as we walked away. It was only a hint, but his face showed frustration. The oddest part of it all was I’d swear I also saw a smile. His body exuded shame with a touch of joy.
We could have taken them. It should have been easy. We came to kill the prince anyway, and they were about to do it for us. Reaper had some explaining to do.
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