The Outcast and the Survivor
Written by Trevor A. A. Evans
Text Copyright © 2015 by Trevor A. A. Evans
Published by Thirteen Crossroads Publishing
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation in articles and reviews.
www.thirteencrossroads.com
Preface
The story that follows is part of a chapter-series, The Outcast and the Survivor. It has been made available on Kindle and Nook as a convenience, since it is available free of charge directly on the Thirteen Crossroads Publishing website. The story will continue with a new chapter being released each month until the last chapter is published in December 2017.
Chapter Four
“What is that awful smell?” I whisper to Wade as we creep across a narrow stone bridge toward another eerily still and quiet canyon fortress.
He looks at me, his face serious and emotionless, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he lowers his right hand to his belt, hovering it just above the metal gun he fondly referred to earlier as a Peacemaker. It’s strange that the warriors in Kalepo do not themselves equip such a weapon assuming that it is as powerful as Wade suggests. Hopefully he won’t have to use it.
We stop once we reach the entryway to the fortress, a heavy metal doorway. Wade leans his shoulder against it, and it budges slightly, meaning it must not be barred from the inside. Wade then looks at me alertly, drawing his weapon and pressing his finger to his lips. Something is terribly wrong, and he knows it, maybe from the foul odor on the air.
As he pushes the door open, I immediately realize the source of the horrid stench. The mangled remains of dead soldiers fill the entry hall beyond the doorway, each one covered with numerous gashes and stained with blood.
I cover my mouth with my hands to stop myself from screaming. This is so much worse than the city of ash where I found the Necromancer. Though the destruction there was much greater, the bodies had decayed and lost the vivacity of life they once possessed. Here, the dead are so fresh that dark-colored birds have gathered to pick at their remains.
Wade’s reaction is the exact opposite of mine. He places the gun back in its sheathe, standing taller and with a much more relaxed demeanor, as though even an event so horrifying doesn’t faze him. He lets out a sigh and glances at me.
“At least we found a place to rest for the night.”
“Are you kidding me?” I revile, then pausing to stop myself from gagging at the smell I’ve tried not to breathe in.
He gives me a condescending roll of his eyes, like he is disappointed and a little irritated that I can’t see beyond the morbidity of this place. I find it troubling, the idea that he can be so immediately comfortable among the dead, which causes the doubts I still have about him to resurface. He has gotten me this far, and at times even shown a genuine concern for my well-being, but how can I come to trust a person who remains so calm, even indifferent, in the presence of such horror.
I think back to the few conversations we had on our way here, how rude he was when we first met but then slowly became someone seemingly pleasant to be around. He had said that he was doing this in exchange for something, that hopefully when we reached Sanctuary we would be done with each other once he received it. That is the side of him I am seeing right now, the side that almost makes me excited to get to Eliana just to be done with him. Hopefully that will still be a possibility considering what we have just come across.
“No one hunts the living in a graveyard,” he says coldly. “You need rest, and this is the safest place for you to get it.”
This comment reminds me of something else he said, that he is a survivor. If that’s who he really is, then I wouldn’t imagine him taking much thought for the deceased, and it’s not like I’ve never met people like that, even good people.
Back in Kalepo, there is a small cult of temple priests from an order called the Hora. It is one of many cults, each serving a specific purpose in the religion of our ancestors. The members of the Hora focus on the future, on preparing for what is to come as opposed to dwelling on the past. Because of this, they do not attend funerals or memorials, not out of disrespect, but as a reminder to the rest of us to keep our eyes on the horizon.
Maybe I’m being too harsh on Wade. This world beneath the mist is filled with so much conflict and struggle, it’s probably hard to escape becoming accustomed to it. Still, there is something about him that seems off, as though beneath his outer shell is someone much more complicated, conflicted. He said it himself that he was being two-faced, perhaps with the intention of hiding his true self from me. I wonder if he’ll ever let me in to see who he really is.
“Follow me,” he continues. “Let’s try to find somewhere a little less sickening.”
We walk through several more rooms. Some are filled with more dead, while others are empty, but none seem to satisfy Wade as we keep searching. The whole structure is daunting, with numerous great halls and high ceilings. This doesn’t surprise me since it appeared as such from the outside, but it is nevertheless remarkable since it is built into the canyon wall just like the significantly smaller tower we came across earlier.
“If sanctuary is the place people want to get to, then why was so much put into building this?” I ask as we climb some steps.
“A show of strength, I’m guessing,” Wade says casually. “Sanctuary might be remote and harmless, but there are a lot of cities with soldiers and armies of their own to the south. With the kinds of wretched beings found in this world, it’s not worth the risk of assuming that people won’t harm you simply because you mean them no harm.”
A dark feeling fills my heart, and I stop walking.
“Why would someone attack Sanctuary now?”
He doesn’t answer, but his eyes do, shifting from me to my pack. I don’t know how or why, but this has everything to do with my coming here, or at least with the object I’ve brought with me. All of this death we walk among was caused by me, and that thought nearly brings me to tears.
Wade’s lips tighten as though he wants to say something but thinks better of it. He instead turns around and continues up the stairs like I never asked. I follow him and similarly try to push the thought out of my mind, not that it does much when we emerge into another tomblike room filled with more dead.
A single stairway exits the room at its far side, and we take it, finding after hundreds of labored steps that we have reached the top of one of the fortress’s tallest towers. The view it gives is breathtaking, making me temporarily forget those entombed in the halls beneath us. The tower stands high above the canyon walls, giving a wide view to the north, east, and south.
Sanctuary seems much closer now, less than a day’s journey for certain. The thought of reaching it, however, has lost its appeal for me as I hesitate to imagine what me might find when we get there. Wade tries to reassure me that that is unlikely, but I have a hard time believing him and just assume that he is saying that to try and calm my heightened anxieties.
I feel a little more at peace once darkness fills the world that surrounds us, mostly due to the warm aura created by the lava in the canyons below. At this height, the collective glow all around creates a pool of light that rises from the several canyons within view, casting shadows upward and away from the depths of the trenches. I kneel hunched over the edges of the tower and admire the landscape for a while before finally lying down and forcing myself into a deep, exhausted slumber.
Wade wakes me up in the morning by covering my mouth. I want to jerk away from him, but the grave look he
gives me stops me from reacting. He needs me to immediately realize that I must remain quiet because we are no longer alone.
Very carefully, I ease myself up against the wall behind me and angle my head so that I can see down toward the entrance through a broken portion of the tower. Soldiers, at least a couple dozen, are marching toward the entranceway. Their movement is slow as their eyes lurch around at anything suspicious. Though the light of day has returned, it is still faint, and there remains a lot of darkness to be wary of.
“Who are they?” I say softly to Wade.
“Guards from Sanctuary,” he replies.
“Then we made it,” I give a relieved sigh.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. With what they’re about to discover, they may be no friendlier to us than those who executed this massacre. It might be best if they don’t see—”
“Hiding makes us look like we were a part of this,” I interrupt.
“No,” Wade corrects, “it stops the people in Sanctuary from immediately associating your arrival with death.”
I stop arguing there as the guilt I felt last night comes back.
“Then what do we do?”
Wade pauses.
“We wait and hope they leave. There is no secret escape from these canyon forts, at least as far as I know. The people who died in here had no other choice because they were trapped.”
A long silence