Read The Vitalis Chronicles: White Shores Online

Authors: Jay Swanson

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The Vitalis Chronicles: White Shores (7 page)

BOOK: The Vitalis Chronicles: White Shores
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Oblivious to the embers landing around him he tried to yell, to call out, to see if anyone was alive. The knot in his throat choked his words. He strained to say something. Anything. All that came were streams of tears, cleaving clean beds through fields of ash on his cheeks. Through the tears and waves of heat emanating from the fires, he saw something on the door, something metal, though it had been dulled by the grime of the fire. It looked almost like a chain.

Lights flashed in front of his eyes as his head threatened to explode. The ground came up at him with surprising speed. Before he knew it, he was on the ground staring at two pairs of thick leather boots.

“Stupid little bastard.” He heard a gruff voice that must have belonged to the boots that were moving. “Should've stayed out in the forest.”

“You doin' this one or am I?”

“I did the last one.” The voices were fading in and out, sounding close one second and miles away the next. “I didn't sign up to shoot kids anyways.”

“Bah, he's barely a kid any more by the looks of 'em.”

Something made a metallic clacking noise as the boots shifted their weight. It sounded foreign and vaguely familiar all at once. The ground seemed to be getting warmer, it was inviting. John could feel himself drifting.

“These mountain folk are all backwards anyways, hardly have electricity up here. You know that? I don't think I saw more than three cars this whole time!”

“Jus' plug 'em and get on with it.” The voice was getting impatient, but they were fading in John's mind. Brightly colored swirls were twisting and dancing in his field of vision.

“I'm jus' sayin'.” The other voice continued, “How can you respect a folk that don't look to improve their own lives none with the advent of new technology? Ain't right.”

“What's advent?”

“Somethin' to do with trains.”

“C'mon man, it's gettin' hot.”

John felt pressure on his back as one of the boots disappeared from view. Everything had grown distant, the voices kept talking for a minute but he couldn't make it out, nor did he care. There was a yell as from miles away, and three shots rang out as blackness took him completely.

Ardin had stumbled after his brother as quickly as he could, but the smoke was playing havoc with his headache. The vomit on his pants was quickly covered by ash as tiny embers danced through the foliage. He coughed some more, no longer certain what was to blame. Reaching the embankment that bordered their land, he slumped down next to a small tree just as his brother was making it to their house.

He started to cry. There wasn't much else he could do. His sobs seemed silent to him; the inferno drowned out most everything. He could feel the intensity of its heat on his tear-streaked face. Then he saw them.

Two soldiers, slinking through the farm equipment. They blended in to the ash-stained environment thanks to their carbon-gray uniforms better than if they had worn camouflage. Ardin froze, suddenly alert. His eyes began to clear. He stopped weeping. The soldiers started to move quickly. Guns raised, they covered the remaining ground to John before he ever knew they were there.

The soldier on the right lunged forward, putting his full weight behind the butt of his rifle, and delivered a savage blow that put John on the ground in an instant. Ardin grabbed his mouth to prevent the escape of an unwelcome scream. He was certain his brother was dead.

Ardin's eyes darted around to see if there was any clear path of escape. He slid down the slope as quickly and quietly as he could and scuttled behind a rusted plow. He didn't have it in him to get back up the hill, and he was certain they would sweep it soon anyways if they weren't already up there. He had to find somewhere they wouldn't look, somewhere they wouldn't dare to go. Somewhere they were scared to go. Like John had taught him.

He checked to see if the soldiers were looking, but they were preoccupied with his brother's body. Ardin stayed low to the ground as he scrambled from one form of cover to the next, finally reaching a wagon shelter. It was basically half a building designed to keep rain off equipment but do little more.

He was closer to the house now than he had been, off to the left of the two soldiers whose faces were obscured by dark glasses and handkerchiefs. They seemed to be talking to each other still. The heat of the fire was getting worse. He could barely breathe through all the ash swirling around his head. Pulling some rubble out of a drainage ditch next to the shelter, he stopped. The rocks were slick.

He pulled his hands back and found they were covered with blood. He could see where it had seeped out from between the boards that made up the side of the ramshackle shed.

Wiping the blood off on his grimy pants, he peered through the cracks and splintered holes to see what lay beyond. The weight in his stomach did its best to pull him back. There was a hand, it was about all he could make out, but loosely held in it was the hilt of a saber.

He spun around, planting his back firmly on the wood and started gasping for air as though he'd been kicked in the chest again. He knew that hand, that saber. His world fell apart as it burned around him.

He closed his eyes and wished it all would go away. If he could only wish hard enough everything would just go back to normal. When he opened his eyes again he was greeted with a harsh reality that he could do nothing to change what had happened.

He dared a glance around the corner once again to see whether the soldiers were looking. He had to make a run for it, he had to escape. The two men were still over by his brother, neither of them looking his way. But then one of them did something odd. He cocked his assault rifle.

Ardin's eyes snapped to attention. He stared for a second as the men continued to talk. His brother was alive. He couldn't be certain but there was no reason for them to stand about and shoot dead bodies when the world was crumbling around them.

His heart started to race and felt like it would make a run for his throat. He swung lightly over the low wall of the shelter, ducking in the shade provided by the slanted roof above. His father's lifeless body lay broken beneath him, riddled with holes and slumped in the corner. Ardin paused a moment. The shed spun around him as his vision became crystal clear, adrenaline pumping into his veins. He knew what he had to do.

He grabbed the saber out of this father's hand, his stomach dropping briefly before he ignored it and took off running for the soldiers.

The one who had cocked his rifle now had his foot firmly planted between John's shoulder blades and was slowly taking aim at the back of his head. They were still saying something but Ardin didn't hear it. He covered the thirty yards to the murderous devils in seconds, screaming as he leaped to the attack.

The adrenaline was coursing through him now; he could feel it burning like a straight shot of his uncle's whiskey. Everything slowed to Ardin as the tip of his blade lightly scraped the ground and swept upwards. But time kept pace for his first victim who suddenly found a three inch thick blade lodging itself firmly in his neck.

The soldier, thrown off balance, fired frantically in a vain attempt to strike his assailant. But the boy was already rolling, on his feet, and coming back for more. He hacked down once on the face of the soldier, splitting his sunglasses and releasing a garbled scream of pain from behind a bloody handkerchief.

Without thinking Ardin spun low to avoid the gunfire he knew would be aimed his way. He didn't even hear the whip-crack of bullets whizzing past his ear or the thuds they made striking his victim. Down went his knee to plant and gain leverage, up came the blade as he twisted it into the ribcage of the second soldier who had already been struck twice by his partner's flailing attempts to shoot Ardin.

The man went wide eyed, tensing for a moment before Ardin twisted the blade and hauled it free. The soldier was dead before he hit the ground and Ardin was already working to drag his older brother clear of the carnage.

FIVE
 

A
RDIN FOUND HIMSELF
kneeling over his brother's broken body in the woods. It didn't take a field surgeon to realize he wasn't going to make it. The majority of John's blood had been left on the steps of their home. How stupid he was, he thought to himself. He could have saved his brother if only he hadn't been such a coward in the first place.

The world was turning serene; an other-worldly hue of grays and dark greens dominated the landscape. Through the trees he could see the smoking remains of his home. Flames still lapped the sides of a few buildings, but most everything had been razed to the ground by the fires. They were in a small crater in the woods now, sheltered from the afternoon winds that were picking up off the face of the mountain. The remaining soldiers had never appeared. He was certain one pair had swept the ridge, but none had found them.

He held John's head in his lap, hair matted with blood and pale face still in eerie calm. His breathing had grown increasingly shallow, each breath took longer to fill and more time passed between every labored attempt. Ardin found it difficult to breathe himself as he listened to his dying brother. Something about the thought of breathing took the simplicity out of it.

He thought of the soldiers, thought of them dying under his father's saber. The memory threatened to wrench his stomach. There was a sense of power, of accomplishment, and yet there was guilt in it too. Shame. He could feel his throat constrict as his face grew hot and began to sting. He swallowed hard, forcing the thoughts out and looking back down at his brother.

He would do it again, he told himself, and he would do it faster. But he didn't know if that were true.

He closed his eyes, his chin finding a resting place on his chest as he stroked his brother's forehead. He felt tired and sick and hungry all at once, but mostly tired. His own breathing slowed as his muscles began to relax and he drifted off to sleep.

Ardin woke up a short time later. It felt like ages but the shadows had barely moved. He was somewhat refreshed, or at least he felt more alert. The skies were clearing as the smoke died down and drifted off. The village would smolder for days. He looked down at his brother, still lying in the crater, head in his lap. The breathing had stopped entirely now.

There was a calm to the whole thing. After what had just happened, this seemed strangely right to Ardin. He sighed, and placed his brother's head gently on the ground as he stood up.

“Right shit we got ourselves into,” a voice came through the foliage nearby.

Ardin ducked, his heart in his throat.

“The hell is the general thinking?”

“Hell if I know. All I do know is this is messed up.” The two soldiers stopped at the rim of a small crater left by the shelling earlier. John's body lay quietly at its center.

“Wow,” said the skinny one. “What happened to this guy?”

“Almost looks like he got pounded by a shell and it bounced off his head.”

“A veritable invincible man eh?”

“Too bad for him it ain't so,” the thick soldier spat. “I'm tellin' ya, Gabe, somethin' ain't right 'bout all this.”

“He'll blame it on the Witch,” the skinny one said. They kept staring at the corpse resting peacefully in the crater. “And they'll believe him.”

“Can't 'magine no one'll talk.”

“I'm sure that's more of a short-term plan. It will be interesting to see how things develop.”

Just feet away to their left, Ardin crouched in the bushes, shaking like he was riding the hay wagon to market. He clenched his father's saber in his fist and closed his eyes, trying vainly to quiet his raspy breathing.

“How often you seen somethin' like that, eh Gabe?”

“Never, to be honest. I'm not so sure he got hit by a shell.”

“Course not!” The thick one laughed. “Damned strange though eh?”

“Yes, it is.” the skinny one's keen eyes scanned the area. Ardin worried they would find him out. “Very strange.”

“Oi! You two!” A cry came down from somewhere farther on “You lovebirds quit yer cooin'! We've gotta catch up to the battalion, they're headed for the Witch's Cave!”

“It's not even a cave,” muttered the skinny one.

“Might as well be.” The thick one spat to the side, “Can't keep that ol' hag locked up forever though. I'm lookin' forward to seein' what the ol' boot heel has in store for her. Brute's demo squad should have some decent fireworks for us.”

The thick one propped his rifle on his shoulder as the two soldiers walked around the crater to the right, avoiding the corpse.

“Poor bastard.”

Ardin relaxed slowly, catching his breath and waiting until he was sure he was alone. He was uncertain of what to do until he looked at the cold, stiffening remnants of his family in the shallow crater below him. It came to him clearly: he would exact revenge. He would find whoever this general was and he would end him. He was only a man. Ardin knew now that he could end men. The slightest pang of remorse cropped up as he left his brother unburied, but there wasn't time. Not if he was going to set his trap. His brother was the one who had taught him, now it was time to honor his memory by demonstrating what he had learned.

He rose and started to run due north through the valley. The Witch's Cave was one of those places everyone knew existed, but feared to venture near for fear of what it held. He had never been there, but he knew the way. If he went quickly enough he could take the pass east through the Twin Peaks and be there in a couple of hours. The sun wouldn't set before he'd set things straight, whether or not he was around to enjoy the satisfaction.

T
HE COMPOUND HOLDING
the old Magess, more recently dubbed the “Witch” by her less adoring fans, was run down and poorly maintained. It wasn't exactly a place one wanted to spend a lot of time, and the few engineers from the army that got sent up to check on and fix it up rarely did their job. Better to just stay in a nearby village, enjoy the offerings of the local pub, and head back to Elandir with a falsified report than to set foot in that God-forsaken place.

BOOK: The Vitalis Chronicles: White Shores
6.89Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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