Banished

“We need to pack and leave now!” Aito hisses as we enter the tent.

I’d waited for the guards to disappear back down the tunnel and remain gone for a while before gesturing to Naoaki that it was clear.

“They left.” I point out.

“Doesn’t matter. I heard what they said. They plan to flush the tunnel.” Says Aito.

“But we’re not even in the tunnel.” I insist.

We’d run into no threats so far and had food and water available nearby. It is as safe as we could have ever dreamed of. Besides, one look at Khane and I know without doubt we are not going anywhere quickly. At least he is fully dressed.

“There will be enough water coming out of this tunnel to drown us in seconds. We need to be as far from here as we can get before this evening.” Aito ushers a stiff Khane out of the tent along with the rest of us.

We grab the packs and cluster to one side as Aito pushes the red button. He picks up our tent, which is now a small ball the size of a potato, and we head into the jungle. Khane tries to keep up but I can tell he is struggling long before he finally calls for a rest. Naoaki helps him remove the thick leathers from his upper body and strap them to his back. He is overheating on top of still fighting the poison in his blood. The red veining in his arm seems to have gone down a bit and it isn’t as swollen, or glowing. Even so, we can all see the rash his leathers have left behind from chaffing. The poison has made his skin extremely sensitive. Out of necessity our rest is short and soon we loop back to follow the line of the wall toward the place we think the gates are located. It doesn’t really matter that we reach the gates today, just that we outrun the coming flood. Khane won’t be saving anyone today. I don’t ask but I hope Bel made good use of her training sessions. She is on her own for now.

It is nearly dusk before Aito calls a halt to our pressed march. Khane, exhausted, drops like a stone. We let him be and set up camp like before, tent against the wall facing out, no debris beyond the five foot radius of Aito’s alarm string. A bigger circle would have been better, given us more time to react if something tried to sneak up on us, but the strand had been broken in our headlong rush from his lab.

We eat leftover eel stew and drink most of the remaining water. Khane eats little, sitting hunched deep within himself, knees drawn up, head bowed. I know he blames himself for having left his girlfriend on her own for so long. In truth, it is his fault, there’s no way to cushion that. He should have listened to Aito and kept his hands to himself. Now he will be more than a day late for her Banishment. Who knows what we will find when we finally locate her.

The hard run from certain flooding ends up rather anticlimactically. There are no rushing waters or deep rumbling signaling our imminent death. Perhaps they decided it was more effort than it was worth. After all, we are already on the outside, right where they want us. I wonder why they bothered with the whole thing. Why not just slaughter us all. Baby with orange eyes, yep that one’s out. Easy. Why train me, feed me, put me through the hell of a Trial? What was the purpose of all of that?

Night has set in. I stand outside and look up to where the stars should be but the city’s many lights cancel out the tiny pinpricks of brightness I’d hoped to see. It is one of the dreams on my bucket list, to see the stars before I am killed, or eaten. Maybe I’ll survive tomorrow and get another chance to see the stars.

I have ten items on my list and some are pretty simple while others border on fantasy. Plant a garden. Build a home. Find love? Really? Funny thing though, no where on my list does it say ‘survive’, perhaps I’d never believed I would.

“Credit for your thoughts?”

“Hey, Aito.” I turn to my friend. “You make a good leader, you know. You seem to know everything.” He was always getting into trouble breaking into the library or the infirmary or some other off-limits area. His head must be so crammed with information I wonder why it didn’t explode.

“Not everything.”

We stand quietly for a moment, close but not touching.

“Do we have any kind of plan?” Until now I hadn’t given the idea of where to go any thought. I’d assumed I would be dead by now. Trial first, then Banishment, then death by horrible monster. The natural order of things for a twist like me.

“No. Survive another day I suppose.” He says quietly.

Something about my friend seems different lately. A natural introvert like myself, I am comfortable with his silences and mystery. It isn’t that. There is something almost disquieting about him. Or maybe it is just that my nerves are strung too tight.

We turn in for the night, each of us choosing a small corner to nest in. I sleep fitfully, my dreams filled exotic creatures. Each one is beautiful and each one is specially designed to kill in new and interesting ways. Beasts with glowing claws and teeth of fire chase me through a landscape as foreign to me as the one I now travel while awake. Purple palms sway threateningly and spiky plants shiver as they try to impale me. I wake explosively, my heart pounding.

By afternoon we are finally approaching the area where we expect the Gates to be and we move forward with caution. The ground had risen slightly and as we follow the wall the Great Gate comes into view. Taller than ten men standing on each others shoulders, the Gate is made of dull dark metal. It is industrial and forbidding, a throwback to another time.

The ground we have been marching across is closest to the wall but falls off abruptly. We are given a great view of the Gates but not an easy path to the valley below. We will have to wend our way down the rock line, away from our goal, until the ground evens out, then head back up.

According to everything we have been told, this is the stomping ground of all manner of dangerous creatures. This place is the site of my nightmares, the place I have always thought would become my grave. My heart beats wildly and it messes with my focus. I take a cleansing breath to clear my mind and crouch next to Khane as we wait for Naoaki. We hadn’t intended to help him with his rescue mission originally but now it just seems wrong to turn our backs on another twist. Besides, Khane is still hurt and there is safety in numbers. A shifting of the red grasses and Naoaki shimmers to visibility.

“Did you see her?” Khane whispers urgently, his face creased with worry.

“Not as such, no. There is a small cave a short way down the wall with a creature camped below. It could be waiting out someone inside.”

Khane blows out a breath. He has hope at least.

“What kind of creature are we talking about?” I ask.

I finger my knives, worried. I am tough enough for a lot of things….but what if Itwistedagain? I am self conscious about what I may have become. What sort of monster had rescued Aito? I still haven’t asked him. Also, there is the pesky issue of putting me back together again. This is no place to go all squishy. My back itches at the memory and I can’t resist scratching.

“It looked big and furry. It was curled up so I didn’t get any details.” She hesitates. “There might be more creatures, there is a lot of underbrush down there.”

Great. Plenty of hiding places for all the things that went bump in the night but nothing quite tall enough to provide cover for a warrior girl like me. I shift the straps that hold Fish’s pack and lower him to the ground. He whispers furiously and Naoaki leans close to hear.

“He says to stay away from the pink flowers, they’re poison.”

I nod. Somehow, though, I doubt flowers are going to give me the most trouble. I shrug out of my long coat freeing the knives strapped to my back. Now I wear only my long leather pants and a thin sleeveless shirt under the harness that holds my collection of steel to my back. I have them arrayed for easy access and they point up and out in a double spray, like wings. I flex my fingers and roll my shoulders to loosen up.

Beside me, Khane has brought out his weapon of choice, a long curved double sided ax. The thing has to weigh a ton at least but he has always been able with the heavier weapons. The gray metal is a alloy similar to my knives but not as finely made. My blades are of folded steel, each far sharper than any weapon twists were normally allowed. I doubt, however, that the guards I had relived of them know the difference.

“Ready?” I ask. It will be just us two. If we don’t make it, the others will go on without us. There is no other way. I start down, my eyes searching along the wall for the cave Naoaki had mentioned while also checking for any other possible threats.

A rough hand grasps my arm, startling me.

“Thank you.” Khane says gruffly.

I gaze up into his eyes. Anyone but Aito and Naoaki would look quickly away, put off by my bright orange stare, but his pale grays hold mine, unflinchingly earnest.

I blink and nod. We head down.

As we get further down the hill I realize that avoiding the pink flowers altogether isn’t going to be an option. They grow everywhere! Roundish, compact bushes of them sprout up randomly on higher ground. As we get lower they grow more thickly, perhaps liking the extra moisture the lower ground offers. The tiny flowers don’t look especially menacing nor do the stems sport thorns or anything sharp that I can see.

We move through them slowly, trying not to brush against them as we creep toward the sleeping creature, a huge mound of tawny fur.

Khane taps my shoulder and makes a sweeping gesture. He wants to get closer to the wall again, come at the cave and the creature from above while I approach from the front. Very briefly I wonder if he plans to whisk Bel away while I am occupied with the beast below. I shake off my doubt and nod, scanning the wall before he veers off. I give the thumbs-up. Nothing moves that way.

I barely catch myself before sneezing. It would have given me away, not the best plan for sneaking up on a dangerous monster. I scan the area before me and finally realize what I am seeing. The pale haze isn’t a trick of the light. It is pollen. A great golden cloud hangs like a fog in the lower area before the gates. A soft glow shimmers off it as the sunlight hits it and it’s directly in my path.

I breath through my mouth and try to focus, though that is becoming increasingly difficult. The pollen must be the carrier for the poison and it is starting to affect my system. I close my inner lids, protecting my eyes from the pollen and shading everything in amber. The dizzy spell fades and I scan again for movement. Only myself and Khane, up by the wall now, move anywhere. Tall white clouds that had been massing on the horizon now drift above us. They hang, like giant puffs of milk thistle caught in an updraft. The sudden shade feels like a balm on my exposed skin and I wonder if the pollen has some kind of acid in it.

I put that thought aside and mark my position. I have the furry creature in sight. Naoaki had neglected to mention the size of the thing. It looks like a great round hill that rises and falls gently. Slow, even breathing hopefully means it is sleeping. To my left, Khane has nearly reached the cave. He has a treacherous path to follow. Loose rock and shale cover the hill above the cave and I am beginning to fear he might reach the sleeping creature sooner than I, if unintentionally. His foot slips and I gasp. He nearly goes down but catches himself at the last moment. He grins sheepishly and waves. I just shake my head, idiot.

I look back at the creature and blink. The motion, combined with my sudden inhalation of more pollen when I gasped, has splintered my vision. There are two creatures now. One is shaking itself in slow motion and one is peering up the hill as a small boulder, set in motion by Khane, rolls down toward it. It’s golden brown fur flows back and forth, light and feathery. Down its back the fur stops and wide plates of hide overlap to form a sort of natural armor.

I will have to point my knives toward it’s (their?) underbelly somehow. I still can’t tell if it is two beasts or one. It hardly matters now. The wind has shifted with the coming storm and it has my scent. The dual images swivel to face me and their roar of challenge fills the valley.