18. RIEKA
18
RIEKA
T ension scented the atmosphere like smoke. Tangy and filled with dark swirls, the aroma ticked my throat. It was the kind of scent that would have me searching for the nearest door. But the only door I could walk through led to the source of that tension.
A wave of melancholic and angry passengers had fled from the comfort of their bunks and drifted in around those luminous individuals. The blue halos were cold and confronting against the warmth of the wood and copper architecture of The Fight Hall .
Bile rose to my throat as the voices of my companions filled my senses with fear and terror, regurgitating things they’d heard and claimed to have been told. The wall of denial and knowing ignorance I’d carefully constructed these last few days began to crack.
Strong hands squeezed my arms and spun me around. A quickening of ocean waves filled my vision, dangerous and violent, such a contrast to the earthly calm of his scent.
“Rieka!”
I let his voice pull me from my thoughts. To claim my focus. I had to.
“Rieka, get dressed. As fast as you can. We don’t have long.” Rhydian turned his attention to S’vara and Tira beside me. “Help her.”
He continued to speak as we pulled on the clothes I’d stripped off not even two hours ago.
“You need to find a cache supply. The Deadwood covers a fifty-mile radius and they can be anywhere within that. Avoid the high ground if you can, some Hunters have perches in the trees. They will kill you from them if they catch sight of you. The train won’t circle back around for a full twenty-four hours so if you don’t make it back to the train by midnight tomorrow, find shelter. If you cross paths with a Hunter, run. They will try to force you into a dead zone where they’ve set up Void traps to neutralise your taint. If you cross one of their camps, steal anything along the edge that will keep you alive for any amount of time. Water. Flint. A weapon. But do not enter the camp. If you cross paths with another passenger stick together. It’ll save your life. And as soon as they announce commencement you run.”
“But you just told me to stick with someone, if we’re all together when we get off isn’t that safer.”
“Rieka you run.” “I will find you in there,” his inner voice added with the kind of assurity that was frightening.
“What does that mean? You’re coming with me?”
He shook his head. “The Hunters have rules they have to follow, but some don’t care, they will kill one another to collect the collars of their prey.”
“We’re prey to them?” Tira’s soft voice quivered as her hands trembled on my shawl.
“Now do you get it?” The stoic expression he bore made him look like a marble statue, calm and unyielding.
“What’s stopping the passengers from running away?” I asked silently.
“The collars. Once inside the Deadwood, your collar is bound to its borders, cross it and you’ll die.”
I couldn’t hide my disappointment, even from my inner voice. “Death by collar or death by Hunter, not much of a choice.”
“They’ve turned a centuries-old punishment into entertainment for the masses, Rieka. What did you expect?” The tang of fear in him was so minute it was a single grain of salt on my tongue.
That cheery woman’s voice came over the train system. “The train is arriving at Mortusilva Station. Those disembarking at Mortusilva please approach the doors. And be careful to watch your step.”
Rhydian was the only one who moved with me as though some unspoken message had spread amongst the other passengers that they were not permitted to walk any further, my bunkmates included. Walking towards the doors I saw other Runners, doing just as Rhydian was, advising those with the death sentence glowing around their necks.
It was too soon. Rhydian said I’d have a week maybe more before being forced into a Hunt. I’d had four days. The only thing I’d managed to ascertain about the Hunt was the scent the passengers gave off when it was mentioned. Fear.
I stared at the door as I asked my next question. “What if I don’t make it back before the train returns?”
He spun me around to face him, his grip firm on my arms, instantly snuffing out that scent, immersing me in another. His calm.
“You survive. Once a Hunt begins, you can remain indefinitely, but if you’re still in there when you’re drawn for another Hunt, and you don’t disembark at that station, the collar will kill you where you stand. So you need to survive to board the train when it returns the following night.”
Rhydian’s calm was palpable. It blanketed me, a fur coat shielding me against the chill of a snowstorm. So when he finally dropped his hands from my arms, the scent of fear was a tidal wave. I was a fish swimming upriver and as a reflex, I shut it out.
The train slowed and then came to a grinding halt.
Rhydian pressed the button by the door which lit up a red-light overhead. The large roller door removed itself from its pocket in the hall wall and slid to the right.
I thought I’d been relieved to smell the forest. Taste the pine scent at the back of my throat. But instead, I found myself focusing on a wooden bench that had experienced too many storms and lost two of its legs to root. On the dark stain that marred the stone floor. The scent of humans and leather and steel.
A station platform stood awaiting me, nature having reclaimed a portion, like a garden one might find hidden on an estate. A wild and untamed kind of secret. I couldn’t look at Rhydian, couldn’t look into that ocean if I couldn’t keep that calm with me.
That damn woman’s voice returned. “Passengers, please disembark.”
As I crossed the threshold onto the platform, Rhydian spoke once more, his words making my chest tighten.
“Do not die Rieka.”
“I never make promises I can’t keep.” I heard the door slide closed behind me.
One hundred heartbeats filled the station to my left and right. Amongst them, I recognised some faces I’d seen in the mess hall. It should have unsettled me more.
The same woman from the train spoke through the station system. “Welcome to Mortusilva Station.” There was a long pause when the train departed the platform taking with it my calm. I heard feet shuffling, and bodies in my periphery moving. Then someone to my left bolted for the forest.
A cacophony of bright blue lit up the air the moment the man passed beyond the edge of the station shelter. The scent of burning meat stirred my stomach as we were forced to watch as his body was cooked by the leash around his neck as he was electrocuted to death. The collar went dead when his heart stopped, the nanotech liquifying as it dripped from his melted flesh and reformed on the station floor where his body now lay.
Spark-Tech. Our collars were made using Sparks.
The crackle of the speaker sent me still, and the woman spoke once more. “Commence!”
Chaos erupted as the word was spoken. Heavy footfalls sounded as passengers who could, ran. Those that didn’t, flew or ducked as a flurry of arrows shot out of the forest. Screams of pain echoed off the station roof as the wounded collapsed, and the dead slinked back and over the edge down on the tracks.
I attempted to launch myself down across the stonework floor in an attempt to play dead with the corpse, his proximity to the edge of the station a possible escape. But I’d miscalculated and had run too far left.
An arrow shot out of the dark and flew right into my left shoulder. I felt the razor-sharp metal slice the skin like butter and wedge itself between the muscles. A howl ripped through me causing every Brute in the vicinity to still. Collapsed on the cold stone floor I crawled as fast as I could to the left wall, a small alcove my only shield and I wedged myself there, legs aligned to the stone.
My fingers came away clean when I touched my back. The arrow hadn’t gone all the way through.
Fuck!
I’d have to leave it in. I gathered a piece of my shawl and bundled it in my mouth, then took hold of the shaft with both hands, the pain making me cry out, and I snapped it.
Silence then fell on the station. The scent of death tainted the air. Back flat to the wall, I closed my eyes and listened.
Heavy breathing.
Quickened heartbeats.
Leaves crushed under feet.
Feet. Ten pairs. Ten scents.
I pushed my senses out further. Five stationary to the north. Twelve pairs running. No. Eleven pairs now.
Nine to the east. Three stationary, six running.
The clicking of a crossbow being drawn.
The thud of an axe striking wood.
The scent of blood in the air to the west, ten more heartbeats, eight running.
And a prolonged hum. I followed the sound with my eyes and found the lights of the station emitting the low sound. The Hunters had a clear view of everyone.
I searched the ground around me and when I found what I was looking for I aimed for the light fixture. I missed. I searched again and found another piece of broken stone, digging it up with my finger. The glass shattered, dispersing the luminos—the phosphorescence produced by Brights—into a dazzling mist that dissipated into nothing.
Another bulb shattered a few meters away. Then a few seconds later the one next to it. Someone had worked out what I was doing. The Hunters were humans, which meant they couldn’t see in the dark. But some of us could.
Within minutes the entire station was dark, not even the new moon shed enough light on the station to aid the Hunters. I could hear footfalls on cold earth as trepidation filled the air. I risked a peek beyond the wall that shielded me.
Five Hunters were approaching by my right.
Light caught something in my periphery and I saw the collar of the corpse. I could see the Hunters as clearly as if daylight were streaming down through the treetops. They would not be able to see me, not this close to the wall. I reached out and grabbed the collar.
It felt even more inconspicuous in my hands as if it were some sculpture that might sit on a mantlepiece and not around a throat. I didn’t know what compelled me to store it in the inner folds of my shawl, wedged close against my chest, but I did it.
The footfalls touched stone and the Hunters climbed the stairs of the station platform. The nearest was no more than four feet away, crouching down to examine the corpse for the very thing I had just taken. A helmet and mask covered their head, body armour of a fibrous nature covering them all in black. He smelled of equal parts excitement and joy. Not an ounce of fear.
The scent of honeyed toast drew my sight upward and as the Hunter stood, a lithe figure emerged from the darkness of the roof awnings and dropped on the Hunter, brandishing two arrows. The figure plunged them into the vulnerable gaps between the Hunter’s neck armour.
Everything that happened felt as if a god had slowed time. The killer reached down for the Hunter’s weapon, a black metal cylinder with a cross-bow trigger and aimed it at the chest of the second Hunter who had turned around to aim a similar weapon. They missed because the killer was faster, striking them in the chest and proceeding to take that weapon as well. The other passengers took this as their opportunity and struck. Several growls echoed off the roof along with gurgled screams. I didn’t wait to see who had won those fights. I crawled along the station floor, and when I reached the stairs, I ran.
I hadn’t run in so long. The part of me that craved it like a fish craved water screamed at me to go faster. Begging me not to stop.
My legs ached; my lungs burned. But they were the good pain, the pain that told me I was still alive. I ran until the only heartbeat I could hear was my own.
Somewhere between a hill and a gully, the caw of a raven pierced the night.
My body bolted to an instant stop. Through slow breaths, I searched my surroundings for the creature hoping it had been an adrenaline-induced delusion.
It was perched atop the splayed roots of an uprooted carriage-sized tree trunk.
The raven cawed again, my body retreating at that familiar sound.
It cawed once more before shooting off into the night air. Seconds later the wind pawed at my cheek, and I smelled humans.
I took shelter in the roots as their approach sounded in the night. Two of them. One from the east and one the south, their scents getting closer with every step, until one of them, dressed identically to the Hunters from the station, stood no more than ten feet from the trunk.
A single gaakriik, a harmless spell surfaced. One that would cause no harm to anyone except me if it went wrong. One to hide me in plain sight.
I let the word slip, spoken so softly it could have been mistaken for a breeze.
“Arkagaffai.”
The rush was frightfully familiar. The way I could feel my blood pumping in my veins. How I could hear the bugs crawling in the soil beneath my feet, the leaves stretching for growth in the tree tops. How for one split second, I felt everything. And then it was gone. Whilst the rush had vanished, I could still feel my hold on the spell in the back of my mind where it would remain until I released it.
And just in time for the second Hunter to emerge from right on top of me. He jumped from the trunk above me onto the forest floor with terrifying ease, right in front of me causing my breath to catch in my throat.
On their back were two axes, fresh blood on the blades.
Both Hunters strolled towards one another conversing in Kensillan. They appeared to agree on something, the taller one with the axes pointing back in the direction the other had come, away from me. The smaller nodded and walked past the other Hunter.
When there was at least ten feet between them, the Hunter pulled an axe from his back and threw it. The weapon embedded itself in the helmet of the other Hunter. Their body went limp and collapsed to the ground in the same moment I let a gasp slip.
The axeman came to a standstill. Slowly he turned, head inclined towards me. After a moment of contemplation, he approached the downed tree stopping a mere foot from where I was lying.
Staring right at me. Or rather through me. The Hunter could not see me.
I held my breath.
Five seconds went by.
Ten seconds and he turned on his heel, never having seen me at all. I didn’t take another breath until the axeman had removed his weapon from the other’s helmet and he’d disappeared into the tree line.
I didn’t know what I would find when I looked upon myself, never having bespelled myself before, nor had I ever spoken that word. I had to stifle my shock. Every inch of my skin was covered in bark and moss, right down to my feet, and when I placed my hand against the tree truck, there was no discerning it from my hand.
A heartbeat thumped one hundred meters to the north, and it was converging on me.
I immediately released my hold on the spell and ran until I caught the scent of more Hunters, hid then ran again. I kept my senses alert seeking signs of anything that smelled or sounded out of place. I was fine with this for the most part, except when I needed water. I sought out its scent and found a stream but realised just in time the tang of death drop flowers. Someone poisoned the water upstream. I found the body of a passenger who hadn’t figured it out in time further downstream. So not only did I not have any water to drink but I also couldn’t use it to clean out my wound. At least the injury wasn't worse, and I'd had worse. This pain was bearable.
I kept running. Not because I needed to but because it kept me warm. Because a certain someone told me to dress appropriately for fight training. All I had for insulation was my wrap, so I retied it to shield my head from the majority of the cold night air, but with no fire and still no sign of a supply cache, the idea I might be stuck here for another day was fast becoming my reality.
A figure I hadn’t scented passed through the woods ahead of me and my body stilled as a wolf emerged from between the trees.
My body immediately went into the crouch position as I readied myself to confront it.
But it suddenly stopped and turned to look at me.
A large grey with a small white patch on its side. A gorge formed in my chest, ripped open by the sight of that wolf.
Tiny!
I took a step closer and he disappeared.
Shocked into immobility, I could feel the biting cold of the forest air, as though I was standing on the balcony of my room back in Keltjar completely naked.
My teeth began to chatter.
A rustling of leaves snapped my attention to my left and I saw him again. Running.
Tiny? Wait? He’s supposed to be dead.
I chased after him, the chill of the air refusing to leave me, slicing at my face like a cutthroat. Tiny appeared and disappeared through the trees as I pursued him.
Then he vanished.
There was no trace of him, of his smell, of his coat.
My spectrals dissipated into nothing as if there was no one there to receive them. I wrapped my arms around my quivering body.
Nothing. No response.
Another noise, a hollow whistle sounded behind me and I spun around in haste to find myself standing before the mouth of a cave.
Tiny? I called out on my approach.
The scent of a pack long since fled was all that lingered in the dark tunnels. I’d slept in dens before, I could do it again. My eyes soon adjusted to the darkness, but my body continued to shiver.
In the dark, the true dark, nothing lingered but thoughts. Thoughts that bounced off walls and sung poems of wishes denied. They thought this moment prudent to emerge.
“The loss of my wings—” I stopped at the sound of that voice.
“The pain is unimaginable.”
Mother?
Her refined figure walked across the opening of a passageway. My feet were drawn to her, to her warmth.
“Pierced through the heart by my own daughter’s hand.”
A figure stood at the end of another passage, this one with dark curls and brandishing a wooden Kasik in play with a young cadet.
Papa?
Mischievous giggles flittered down the tunnel. A child dashed past me with a lantern outstretched, the luminos bouncing off the silver ring of symbols carved into the wall of the cave.
A parade of figures in white veils sang a hymn of solemnity as they walked through one wall and into the other.
“Rieka?”
I collapsed, my body forsaking me at the sound of that voice.
“Rieka!” Firm hands found raw skin. I cried out as the contact sent pain ripping down my arm.
Golden hair and sunlit eyes. “You’re here?”
You can’t be here. Not here. Please no. I reached for his face. He was still as beautiful as the last time I saw him.
“Shit. You’re burning up.”
What? Burning. “Nothing’s burning. ” “The world is too cold to burn.”
My vision faded as winter settled into the cave. The last thing I heard was my longest love speaking the words, “This is the second time you’ve done this to me.”