Gauntlet

San woke up to incredible pain, much worse than her headache two days ago as now her entire body ached from lactic acid. Trying to stretch, her joints felt rusted over. Straightening her limbs took incredible effort as she began trying to stand, raising her left hand above her head as she saluted the sun.

Packing up her camp and dusting off her faded blue cloak, she resumed her walk at a much slower speed. Being left alone with her thoughts made her realize the biggest handicap with the gauntlet wasn’t trying to fight with incredible weight but recovering from the strain it put on her muscles.

San considered doing sets of shoulder scrunches thinking if she built herself up to withstand the weight of the metal, she could avoid injuring herself between here and the Capital as its towers grew larger with every step and the hunk of iron with fingers, hanging from her only seemed to get heavier, but the idea of even more physical labor in her current state made her shy away from anything that wasn’t mandatory. Although, she could feel herself regaining some movement, despite her body warning her to slow down.

She passed few people on the way to her destination. Walking to the far side of the road with her hooded cloak raised so she only made eye contact with the boots of the passersby, she could still tell a lot about the person. The metal knight’s boots were probably off on a dangerous quest while the large worn leather galoshes and the smell of manure came from a hard-working farmer hopefully returning home after selling his wares.

But the tattered fabric commoner shoes that stopped and tried to make conversation were the least welcome. The gauntlet twitched with animosity as two young men stood blocking San’s path.

“Hey, little miss, have any gold you could spare?” the taller of the two young men asked as San looked up with annoyance. A rage was building as she tried to walk around them, she tried ignoring them, going off the beaten trail and through a patch of grass. Darting in front of her, the other boy flicked off her hood.

“Speak when spoken too, brat, unless you want trouble.”

“I don’t have any money, leave me alone,” San stated, her voice firm and sounding unfamiliar to her, but she continued trying to turn and walk around them again.

Unfortunately, the boy made the mistake of putting a hand on her. “Come on, where are you off to in such a hurry?” he sneered, holding onto her shoulder.

San wiped his hand off with her unarmored left hand, bopping his arm at the elbow. Crumpling his reach, she quickly jabbed him in the stomach all with her left hand.

“HEY!” the taller boy yelled as he ran and dove, tackling San to the ground.

But not before she flattened her palm, pointing her serrated fingers at the boy as she lifted the gauntlet with both hands, its edges honed to such a fine point that they made quick work of his thin fabric shirt. With the force he’d generated running at her, he hadn’t seen the gauntlet behind her cloak. She was able to move her right hand to part the seams of his garment, making sure to cut much deeper.

Her metal hand now clean through his stomach, it clenched around his spine. With her thumb and index finger, she could feel the ridges of the disks, taking one and pinching until the boy’s dying screams echoed in her ear. The deafening cry woke San from her murderous trance to find his body on top of hers and shattered spine between her fingers, the bruised boy who was left alive, looked up to the screams to see blood pooling at the other end of his friend’s shirt.

Rushing over and pulling the bloody body off of San to see if his friend was alright, he indirectly freed her, as the corpses weight had been slowly crushing her.

Crawling to her feet, she began to run as she screamed, “DON’T FOLLOW ME!” tears rushing down her face as red drops streamed down her arm, peppering the ground as she ran, adding a bloody layer of pattern to her plain blue cloak.

Panting as she tried to catch her breath, her run turned into a jog, then a quick walk as she looked over her shoulder and saw no one behind. Guzzling the last of her water, her thirst was still not quenched. Her dry throat becoming unbearable to deal with as her tongue felt like a sticky dried fruit, peeling from the roof of her mouth.

Replaying the traumatic event, she kept telling herself they stopped me, he charged at me, believing she was right to think she wasn’t to blame. Trying to brush it off, she was trying to find the silver lining, there’s no way those boys would grow to do anyone any good, she thought as she was happy to realize that running had made her walk that much shorter and she would be at the Capital by late midday. At least there was that to look forward to.

Two guards stood positioned at the entrance, with a wide enough birth for regular people to come and go but carts and other larger deliveries in would be screened. Luckily, they didn’t see the blood on the inside of her cloak, as they barely batted an eye, letting her pass without question.

Stepping within the walls, San gazed up at the glass ceiling many stories above, separating the rich from the poor. She saw the hordes of walking people and objects blocking the sun, giving the lower half a dark and dingy feel.

The main area had men in rags huddled over large cans set ablaze, not exactly the thriving, bustling city she expected. While most buildings had boarded up windows, a neon sign winked over rubbish littering the streets like fall leaves, but they looked far less seasonal.

San followed the flashing lights of a nearby bar in hopes they would at least have an ice cube she could suck on, let alone someone who would be able to help her with this thing on her arm. No one bothered to check her age as she wandered up to the bar, climbing onto a torn seat, she could barely see over the counter as clouds of smoke left a silhouette of an older woman dressed to maintain her youth, polishing a glass until she finally took notice of her.

“What can I get you, sweetheart?” the woman asked, not willing to deny a paying customer despite her age.

“Could you please fill this with water? Then I’ll be on my way,” San asked as she dug through her cloak, dropping a few coins and handing over the emptied leather water sack. A glimmer of the gauntlet’s forever polished iron caught the bartender’s eyes as she gladly took the sack to fill.

San took this time to scope out the dingy dive bar. Men were scattered along every table, each with a large mug resting nearby. None of them wore a friendly face to talk to, or at the very least sober enough to ask any questions about the gauntlet, despite her hand trembling at every one in the room who dared make eye contact.

Walking the long way around the bar, the older woman stopped to whisper into the ear of a bearded man mid-stuper, and his slumped corpse rose, speaking to two others who then spoke to the rest, as the whole room stood to watch the woman hand off the water.

Reaching out for the water, San felt the watching eyes, pretending not to notice the room’s sudden obsession with her. She politely said “thank you,” reaching with her plain left hand, but the bartender wouldn’t let go, holding on with both her hands, a strange smile quickly spread across her face as she dared San to properly show the gauntlet.

The crowded room grew even smaller as the tension in the tug of war built, and bodies closed in, but San was sick of the game and stomped down on the women’s heeled shoe, making her throw her arms up, sending San stumbling back, not properly bracing for what she knew would happen. One of the men caught her, grabbing the cloak, pulling it back so that the whole room could see the weapon welded onto her.

“Look, she’s got the artifact!” one drunken bum cried out.

A sea of hands reached out to pry at the girl. Ducking and weaving through them, her right arm made efforts to slit throats as she ran but only grazed their stubble.

San was beyond angry, if she didn’t already have the incident this morning, and her body was under normal circumstances, this would be a fun opportunity to test her skills, more so than target practice at tree’s. But she focused her aggression in her aching legs as she built up enough speed to race toward the bathroom. One of the men slammed the door shut, thinking she would have nowhere to go, but San simply opened her iron palm, bracing her other hand at her forearm, aiming the battering ram away from his spleen and onto the chipped paint as she launched forward, cracking the flimsy wood as her pace couldn’t be slowed.

Skidding on spilled urine, the disgusting floor gave little traction as she jumped to the window which was cracked open with a stick as it somewhat purified the ammonia from the room. San scrambled out as rushing hands nearly missed her boot. She came out on a large wooden crate as darting rats scurried to safety. The men soon spilled out of the bar like a toppled beer trying to fill the grout in old tile, bubbling after her as she jumped from one mound of rubble to the next.

Scurrying around the gutters of the buildings, she was lucky to find a deliberate hole in the brick wall two meters away. It was carved out to pump some much needed air into the disgusting streets. Swinging her arm as she ran along the elevated trash bags and miscellaneous boxes, jumping with the momentum of her arm for the fresh air, she flew for a brief moment as many men watched on the ground below, in amazement of her cat like movements.

Clasping on to the surprisingly sturdy carved brick with her metal hand, she hoisted the rest of her exhausted body up and out as the less than sober men climbed over each other’s shoulders to get to her.

“That thing is worth a fortune, grab her, you idiots!” one cried, his voice buried by the others. San tried her best to kick them off, as her heel made contact with a fleshy cheek, it helped her kick half her body to lay stories above freedom.

A small moat lining the perimeter of the Capital was her ticket out. It mostly for show, but she hoped it would still be deep enough to catch her if she dove. San gulped as she braced for the fall, the interior of the wall looking much less favorable.

Paying for her hesitation, calloused hands as tall as her calf pulled her back through, San braced both arms on either side of the opening, straining her stiff body to fight against their pull. She held on for as long as she could, but limb by limb she was dragged out, the fingers of the gauntlet cutting through the stone frame as her body was propelled backward.

Laughing like hyenas, each man held a limb with two holding her right arm, clearly the lower half of the Capital was severely understaffed in guards as the young woman was forced back into the bar by a parade of drunks, bound with rope, and placed in a broom closet while the horde and bartender discussed how to split the profit.

San could barely make out whispers. As they turned to yelling, bottles were smashed, and chaos ensued. Quickly trying to saw through the ropes as she wiggled her wrist back and forth, she also managed to gnaw a hole into her back, but that didn’t matter now as the cord was thinning then finally snapped, falling to the ground. She was free. She turned to look out the keyhole of the door to see many men knocked over, the bartender wielding a broken bottle, and a few of the other men on the other side of the bar plotting their next attack to split the profits three ways instead of four.

With all of her courage, San turned the rusted door handle to open the closet, luckily, she was far from the focus of the room as she was able to slip out and crawl behind the bar’s counter. Kneeling on layers of filth and catching her hand in sticky spilt drinks, she eventually made her way to the kitchen.

Rushing past the caked on grease, she skidded to the back door that would barely budge, San tried forcing it open, her shoes slipping as the gap through the backdoor offered just enough of a gap for her to try to fit her torso out.

Frantically squirming her slender body through the already tight squeeze, she knocked a garbage bag that had beer bottles precariously placed on it. As it dropped and shattered to the street below, she knew her cover was blown.

Dashing down the alleyway again, making a beeline for that porthole, San jumped to climb a gutter of a nearby building to get the height before her lunge. As her heart beat through her chest, she saw the bar rats racing after her.

In unison now, they set aside their differences for greater profit, throwing emptied bottles at her, trying to knock her down. San blocked them with a raise of the gauntlet, the shattering glass crystalizing in the air looked so beautiful as she made her final jump.

Catching the ledge on her knee, she winced and rolled the rest of the way out, not daring to second guess the fall again. The wind whipped past her as gravity forced her right hand down as she plummeted to the water.

The gauntlet’s double edge paid off again as it absorbed the impact of the water, but its weight now sucking her to the bottom of the moat, it became very clear her years of swimming in the summer sun wouldn’t pay off here.

Meeting the clouding silt with a submerged thud, San tried her best to keep her cool, dragging her right hand behind her as she walked along the bottom of the water, her short feet not doing much to balance out her weight, the gauntlet digging into the mud behind her like an ox tilling a field.

The race for air went on for ages, as her face now a deep shade of purple, the shimmering light of the surface only getting brighter. One slogging step after another San pushed on until she finally breached the rim of the filthy liquid. Unfazed ducks paddled by as an oval of her face gasped for air along the glassy rim of still water, trying her best not to swallow any of their water as the ducks laughed at her situation.

♮

Well… she needed a shower anyway, San told herself as she traded the dried salty sweat on her skin, some strangers blood, and the dried gunk on the floor of the bar for the questionable duck water. Dripping a dotted path away from the city, knowing the greed of man couldn’t help her, she trudged along toward something more familiar.

The remaining day’s walk would lead to the tall trees lining the rim of the wet forest, songbird calls and screeching monkeys welcomed her as she stepped past the bush and into the humid, rooted, sanctuary. Resting just behind its shrouded bush walls, she made camp for the night, hoping she might be able to call this place home.