Unknotted

Cattle Trailers and Cruise Control

Rokan

Topaz’s keys found their way into my hands as I rested against the side of the SUV. I watched prisoners who would be sent back to Namen being loaded into a makeshift cattle trailer. Fiddling with the Ripple charm, I studied the prisoners chosen for the exchange and tried not to glare. There seemed little rhyme or reason for who was chosen to return. The ages ranged from a hybrid hunched over with age to a child no older than three. Male, female. Light hair, dark. Petite framed to large.

A Keadanian soldier approached, clipboard in hand and vial of florescent fluid in another. “I was told to test your prisoners forms before you depart.”

“No need. His beasts are bear devil and bat-eared fox.”

The soldier noted it on his clipboard. “Not a very valuable catch, huh?” With a chuckle, he saluted from his brow and returned back to the trailer.

I watched him curiously. What an odd choice of words. Valuable to what end? Sure, it was a small form for front-line fighters, but soldiers with small forms who could land a bite were indispensable. I could personally confirm how painful Travers’s bite was.

“No!” A man bucked against the hold of the soldiers dragging him to the trailer. “I won’t leave! Not without my family.”

I pushed off the SUV and pocketed the keys.

“Stop resisting!” Soldiers converged on the man and muscled him up the ramp.

“No! Leela! Leela!” The man’s shouts echoed from inside the trailer.

I strode forward, brows knitting together. From somewhere in the rows of kennels, a cry answered the man.

“Dolcan! Please! Please! Dolcan!” The voice was pitched high, desperate.

“That’s all of them.” Chet stood at the back of the trailer. He had been checking off the hybrids loaded up from a list on his phone. “Close it up.”

“Wait.” I stepped on the ramp door to keep them from closing it. The man was thrashing in a cell near the door, rattling the bars and making the trailer vibrate with the strength of his attacks. “You’re sending him back without his family?”

Chet held up his phone. “We can only put the ones on the list onto the truck. That’s the rules, man.”

“But why send him home without his family?”

Chet shrugged. “Don’t know. You would have to ask the ultras.” He put a hand on my shoulder, gently guiding me to the side of the trailer. The man’s shouts continued to rebound inside it, cries from the camp echoing them.

“Look,” Chet said. “I know it sucks. It’s not fair, but that’s the rules.”

I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jeans and squeezed Topaz’s keys. “This doesn’t feel right.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from following orders before. What’s changed?”

“I…” I snapped my mouth shut. I couldn’t explain what. Only knew the squirming in my gut wouldn’t settle.

“It’s the target, isn’t it? She’s gotten into your head.”

I lifted my shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “Probably.” Except, these feelings had nothing to do with Topaz and everything to do with the injustices that seemed to keep cropping up. Each carried out under the orders of my ultras.

The ramp door slammed shut, stifling the continuing pleas. My shoulders bowed.

Chet thumped my arm with a fist. “If it’s bothering you so much, petition Glark to have the hybrid’s wife and kid sent to Namen in the next exchange.”

“He won’t listen to me,” I grumbled.

“You’re sure?” Chet tucked his phone into his back pocket. “Glark always listen to you.”

I snorted back a humorless laugh. “If only.”

Tydeus came from around the truck and tossed me a set of keys. “Rokan, you’ll drive our vehicle. Chet and I will ride in this one. Do you have the directions?”

I held up my phone that had the coordinates programed into it. “Yeah. When are they going to start noting this obscure portal on the map?”

“It’s on protected land,” Tydeus said as way of explanation. If the portal, even one as small as this one, became well-known it would become hard to keep people from settling around it, even if the surrounding area was plains or wilderness.

I pocketed the keys and exchanged them for the ones to the SUV. Travers was sprawled across the backseat, snoring softly. The lucky toad. I hadn’t slept more than a few handful of hours since we had taken over the sub-territory four nights ago. Finish this last mission, I told myself, then I could sleep a week.

I steered out of the prison camp. The trailer truck and cattle car followed me onto the rough road that stretched through the savannah. Though the road pitted with grooves and holes bounced the vehicle around, Travers continued sleeping. While I drove, the tide changed. The landscape washed from a stretch of golden and green hues to a flat expanse of gray. With the sun dipping toward the horizon, I hoped the tide would return so I could catch the colors of the sunset.

We had driven about an hour, my teeth rattling in my head as road conditions deteriorated, when the trailer truck stopped. I rolled down the window, warm arid air hitting my face, and leaned out to see what Tydeus and Chet were doing.

They had climbed out of the truck, circled to the back corner of it, and exchanged a few words. Chet dropped his head back and groaned dramatically. Tydeus ignored the display and moved back toward the cab.

“What’s going on?” I shouted out the window.

“Flat tire.” Tydeus disappeared behind the cab, then reappeared with a spare that he handed down to Chet.

“Need any help?” I hollered.

“Keep an eye on the prisoner,” Tydeus said, at the same moment Chet shouted, “Yes.”

“Chet can handle getting his hands dirty for once,” Tydeus argued.

“Cannot,” Chet grumped. I smirked at his disgruntled expression. He might be a soldier, but certain forms of manual labor he detested. Changing a tire was one of them.

Chuckling, I sat back and rolled the window up, grateful for the air conditioning blasting the heat away. Travers was still sleeping, his face turned toward the seats, his cuffed hands tucked by his face. Not much to keep an eye on, but I did anyway. If the last few days had taught me anything, it was that people could be sneakier than expected.

Tydeus and Chet were tightening the last nut when movement in the passenger side mirror snagged my attention. I shifted in the seat and stared out the back window. Nothing moved but the tall grass swaying in the breeze.

I was about to chalk it up to my imagination, but a feeling nagged at me. Manually unlocking the door, I quietly popped it open and slid out of the SUV. I eased the door closed. Tydeus and Chet hadn’t noticed me exit.

Hand on one of the guns at my hip, I slunk around the front of the vehicle and peeked around the corner of the bumper of the trailer truck. My teeth snapped together and clenched. Bursting from my concealment, I leveled my weapon at blasted Topaz.

(Chapter concludes in part 2)