DeathWatch No. 148 – No one’s bleeding, Professor, but I have to ask you an important favor

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #148 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘DeathWatch’ then go to ‘#0 – A Beginning’ and read from there, or go find the issue # you remember, and catch up from there!

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *

It was night, and he was on his way to the Palace when the announcement came over shortwaves and telescreens. The advertisements for the hunt had grown more and more insistent; the people were worked up into a frenzy for it — there were a number of prey, from a handful of Westlander enemies to a traitorous Ilonan soldier, and in every teashop, hostel, alleyway, laundry, bath, or public group, people were placing bets, calling out which of the participants would fall first, or declaring which prey would fall to which hunter.

The map for where the prey would be running about was posted up on public vidscreens; Garrett found himself in front of one and watched it through several news cycles without really meaning to; it was captivating, and it meant to be.

The public gardens of Ilona were fenced and gated in certain areas, and in other ones, the walls were high, while in others, the walls were nonexistent, because of the way the land rose and fell, making it all but impossible to reach the walls themselves. The city proper was so massive that in its northeastern quadrant, the gardens themselves were edged by the cliff shores of an inland sea.

Cameras were installed everywhere; even if the prey hid from the hunters, the observers on the outside would be able to watch every panted breath, every drop of blood — and the Ilonans were hungry for blood.

There hadn’t been a proper hunt in a year, and they were aching for it.

Garrett stood in a market square, watching the cameras cycle through; over the last five hours, at various stations, he had seen a number of the prey, but hadn’t recognized any. He couldn’t quite tell if they were together, or if the camera rotation made it seem that way.

He had turned away, about to head for the Palace again when a collective shout went up from the people around him. He turned just in time to see a face come up to the screen — the prey must not have realized there was a camera there, lodged up in the tree it was climbing. The voice belonged to a young man, panting, looking around, an ugly scar wrapped around his left eye socket, scarring him from cheek to brow, blackthreaded stitches pulled and still running with blood. “I can’t tell,” he was saying to someone off camera, just out of range. “It’s so huge,” he murmured. “I still think we should have gone north. The city’s not as big to the north. There has to be a wall there.”

That voice. That quiet, earnest inflection. Garrett strained, staring up at the screen, his heart thundering in his throat.

* * *

The knock at the door was light, quick, urgent. Garrett dragged himself from bed, eyeing his watch, and stumbled to the door, rubbing his face. He yawned as he leaned against the wood, murmuring against it. “Hoozit?”

“Professor Garrett,” came the voice. “Please, open up?”

“Nngh, it’s three in the morning. Is anyone bleeding?” Garrett wondered, reaching to fuss with the locks on his door. He opened four of them in an order of his own remembering, pulled the door wide, and said. “Someone had better be bleeding.”

The student slipped in, dressed for cool weather, carrying a heavy pack. He smelled like warm blankets, like heat, like sweat, and his eyes were wet and red as he stood in front of Garrett and drew himself to his full height, tears still drying on his round, pale cheeks. “No one’s bleeding, Professor,” he said quietly. “But I have to ask you an important favor.”

Garrett stared, frowning, and rubbed his eyes. “It’s three in the morning,” he repeated. “What are you doing?”

“I finally figured it out, and I need you to just listen.”

Sighing, Garrett said, “I’m awake, now, you might as well come in and–”

“There’s no time.” The boy’s voice was low, urgent, needing. “Take care of him, would you?”

“Who? What?” Garrett frowned, no longer certain he was as awake as he’d thought.

“Jet. Please. Please, Garrett, take care of him. I have to go. You know why.”

“Now?” Garrett said, baffled. “Son, you–”

“I don’t allow even my father to call me that anymore, Professor,” the boy said, setting his jaw. He looked not just stubborn, but determined in a fashion beyond his years. “We both know you think this is unreasonable, but we also know you aren’t going to stop me, because you can’t. I will leave. I will save him, and if I have to hurt everyone else but him to do it, I will.”

Garrett didn’t bother arguing; he could stop him. He could — but he also knew what it felt like to have to escape. To simply have to, or know that much worse would happen, because of your cowardice — and so he didn’t.

* * *

Garrett’s eyes focused tightly to the tanned, scarred, beaten face of the man whose eyes looked out into the night, searching.

In the tree, the speaker sat quietly for a moment, eyes narrowed, breath coming slower and slower, more even, steady. “I don’t know,” he finally sighed. “I really can’t tell, I’m saying. But yeah… yeah, otherwise it looks like rain, Captain. Stormy, even,” he said, twisting to look at someone well below him. As he did so, his shoulders were bared to the camera; along the back of him, twisted slashes made a long, blistering row against his skin — he’d been branded. Repeatedly. He looked blankly right at the camera, then, those eyes searching, looking right out of the vidscreens, right into the faces of everyone watching. The round of his cheeks was gone, replaced with a strong, stubbled jaw. His eyes were no longer bright and clear and full of eager hope. They’d grown even harder than the night he came to see Garrett, to confess his plan. There was something dark now, not broken but most definitely wounded. This was no longer the face of a young cadet — he’d become a soldier in the last year. A veteran. “We’ll want shelter. Soon.”

“Merciful heavens,” Garrett breathed, pulling his goggles from his eyes so he could look closer, straining to take in every last detail. “Oh, Brody, what’ve they done to you?”

* * *

NEXT

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Flash Fiction Challenge: Pick a Sentence and Go

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Catastrophe Jones

Once again we have Chuck Wendig to thank for today’s post. His Flash Fiction Challenges are often awesome inspirations; this week’s theme was assisted by last week’s theme, in which over 500 people came up with an opening line. This week, Chuck picked 10, and now I’m supposed to pick 1, and use 1000-2000 words to write a story using it. Of note — I used all 2000, and not one more.

I picked #8. “It was Hadeon’s lie that saved the world.” (Berti Walker)

Here goes nothin.

* * *

It was Hadeon’s lie that saved the world.

“Tell me, little creature, how that should prevent me from eating him,” whispered the demon-thing. It lay curled upon the shore, tail frothing in the waves, the seawater smoking off its back, dead fish slowly piling up along the tide line, their rot-eyed corpses already stinking. It licked its lips and stared at Mims, slavering.

The demon thing had come out of the waters, called by witches long since killed. Kings and Queens had banded together, raised their armies, fought down the hordes of undead, beaten back the goblins, the dire wolves, the horrors that crawled out of the caves, the horrors that had once been our fathers and brothers, but were now slag-faced wretches breathing brimstone, leaving charred footprints and soot-staining everything they touched. The armies had laid waste to the enemies, to every last one, including the witches, but then their last beast, the one only they might’ve had some kind of control over, crawled forth from some underdeep, its white belly dragging over the rock, barnacles scraping the algae grown thick in the tide pools, black talons digging down into the sand, creating eddies of saltwater and silt.

Haddy and I had been playing at the shoreline, with Mims and Aoife. It was Aoife’s birthday, and we’d each brought bits of cake tucked away in our pockets, as well as other trinkets, to give her. Mims had made her a basket of scented rushes, to keep her haircombs in, and I’d found a piper’s nest, unspoilt and lined in down to show her, but Hadeon, being sweet on Aoife as he was, worked hard to make her a necklace of seaglass and shells. He’d drilled holes and braided the twines and polished every stone he’d selected by hand. It had taken him weeks and weeks, with several snuck-out trips that his mum would’ve tanned his backside for, had she known.

To him, it made the whole thing all the more special; it is a necklace forged of pure will, he said. And I aim to put it ’round her neck and confess to her my love.

He hadn’t wanted to give it right away, instead, we’d done our usual play of adventuring — something we hadn’t done in the months beforehand, while our whole world was driven to madness by plague after plague of witches’ curses. When finally our mothers had promised us the air was safe and the sun was warm, we’d spilled out into the moors and seacliffs like cows wintered too long in small barns. We’d danced on the shore and we’d built a fire ring and collected drift wood and we’d gone exploring through the caves when the tide went down, and when it came back, we lit our fire and danced and sang even more, peeling off our outer layers until we were wild things in our shifts and pants, knotted hair and bare feet, sand clung to our faces and fingers.

Finally, we settled down, crosslegged where the tide would never reach, and told stories as we pulled out what we’d brought to share. Mims’ basket was received with love, and Aoife positively squealed with delight when I showed her the piper’s nest. She kissed my check and I never thought I saw Hadeon’s eyes so green. Weren’t much to me, though, as I wasn’t sweet on Aoife, and I made her know it by wiping her kiss off with the back of my hand, rolling my eyes. She pinched my nose then, and said, “Don’t you sulk at me, my Jacky. I know you let your mum kiss your cheek.”

“You ain’t my mum,” I said. “Now stop kissin on me or you get none of your birthday cake, neither!”

“Cake!” Aoife laughed, clapping her hands. “This is the best birthday, yet!”

“Only–” Mims began, looking hesitant. “Hadeon, what of your present?”

“There’s more?” Aoife said, and her red hair shone in the firelight as she clapped her hands, looking to Hadeon delightedly. “Did you bring me a present, too?”

Hadeon opened his mouth and was about to show his present to Aoife when Mims shouted, “What’s THAT?”

Angry at being interrupted, Hadeon was about to yell up one side of Mims and down the other, but we all turned to look — something about Mims’ voice made us know we couldn’t wait a minute to see. The great beast had risen on the waves, was rolling in slow on the tide, and the sun glinted off its seafoam scales. It sludged its way onto the shore, and the stink of it was something terrible to behold. We all backed away, but it rose up and towered over us, blotting out the sky.

“I can smell you, witches,” it burbled, and the reek that came from its breath was enough to make us dizzy.

“We’re not witches,” Aoife cried. “Get away, wretched thing!”

Mims took her hand and tried to back away, but the creature stretched out its serpent’s neck and snapped at the air in front of them. Mims half-fainted in shock, and Aoife fell sprawling in the sand.

“None of us are witches!” I shouted at it, trembling where I stood. I was surprised I could yell at all. “The witches are dead!”

“No witches at all?” it laughed. “Then you cannot command me, tiny creature. I have been called, but now I am free upon your lands.”

“Be free, then,” Aofie cried bitterly. “Do as you will, but leave us be!”

“I won’t,” growled the thing. “I’m too hungry to leave you be.”

“Hungry?” said Aoife.

“Aye, hungry,” it snarled. “I am awake, and the only thing that shall let me sleep again is if I eat every last one of you on this world. The witches would’ve denied me a feast, but now there are none to stop me. I shall eat and eat and eat, until I have a bellyful, and then I shall eat again! And I do believe I shall start with this one,” It leaned over and opened its jaws wide, ready to swallow Mims.

“No!” cried Hadeon, who had been silent, until then, watching in horror. “No, you can’t!” he said.

“I can’t? You say I can’t,” the creature rasped, slowly stirring the sea with its tail. It laid along the shoreline, staring down Hadeon, Mims nearly in its jaws. “Tell me, little creature, how that should prevent me from eating him.”

“It’s… there’s… a curse!” Hadeon said, his eyes brightening. He grew bold in his lie, trying to make it as casual, as obvious as possible. “Well you know, of course. You can’t eat a child on their birthday. They’re given gifts and blessings. You can’t eat someone who’s blessed. Everyone knows that!” He looked at Mims and Aoife and I, his eyes pleading. “Everyone knows that, right?”

“Right, yeah, right! Of course,” we all chorused, hoping we sounded convincing. “Even kids know that.”

“Of course,” the serpent growled irritably. “Of course that is true,” it said, raking its talons in the sand. “I know this,” it huffed, lifting its chin, refusing to be thought of as less intelligent than a pack of children. “Then where is your present?” it said, eyes bright as it cleverly tried to out think Hadeon.

“The, uh — Jacky gave Mims a basket of woven rushes!” Hadeon said quickly.

Mims picked it up, holding it tightly, and held it up. “Th-thanks, Jacky,” he said.

“Happy Birthday, Mims,” I called, hoping my voice didn’t tremble too much.

“Very well then,” the thing grumbled. “Then I shall eat… you,” it growled, lunging for me.

“No!” Hadeon shouted. “It’s.. it’s Jacky’s birthday as well! Aoife — Aoife, you got him a piper’s nest, dincha?”

Stunned, I picked up the nest from where Aoife had set it down, and held it up, swallowing roughly. “She did,” I said, holding it up, to be seen. “Thank you, Aoife.”

“Happy Birthday, Jacky,” Aoife said, biting her lip.

The monster looked furious as it turned away. “Then I shall eat you!” the thing cried, darting towards Aoife.

“No, no!” Hadeon cried, stepping right in front of the creature, between it and Aoife. “It’s her birthday as well!”

“Then where is HER present?” it snarled.

“Here,” Hadeon said, pulling the necklace from his pocket. He held it up, and the sunlight glinted on the polished gems and perfectly braided grasses. “This was for you, Aoife,” he said. “Happy Birthday.”

Aoife put her hands to her mouth, tears in her eyes. That was the last one. There were no other presents.

“And where is YOUR present?” the thing said, hungry, angry, talons digging in the sand, tail frothing the sea to furious heights. Waves crashed ever higher as it made itself tall, looming over the boy.

“I–” Hadeon blinked, lost, looking around at us.

Triumphant, the beast lunged down, and snapped its jaws shut over Hadeon, swallowing him down, gulp gulp.

Mims fainted.

I screamed.

Aoife ran for the creature, shouting, “Hadeon! HADEON!” but before she could reach it, it gave a mighty thrash. Its tail waved, knocking us all flat, and it undulated on the beach, hunching up again and again. It had a queer look to its face, and its throat bulged, working. It could not roar, and it could not breathe — it was choking.

When it ate Hadeon, he’d been offering out the present to Aoife; the thing ate him, trinket and all. The necklace was caught around one of its teeth — it could not swallow Hadeon; he held tight to the woven seagrass, and was caught in its throat.

The demon-thing the witches had summoned could not breathe; it thrashed and crashed and spasmed, sending gouts of seawater and dead fish raining over the shore.

It gave one long, last shudder, and fell to the sand, limp and sagging, its milky green eyes rolling shut.

“Hadeon!” Aoife wept. She grabbed for me, and I had thought to comfort her, but she took my belt knife and ran for the creature.

While it stank on the shore, Aoife worked my knife between its jaws and prised open its mouth. Gathering my wits, I roused Mims and we went to help her. We held the jaws open, and Aoife reached down in, and grabbed the shining necklace. She pulled it free of the beast’s tooth, but the other end disappeared into the thing’s gullet. Nevertheless, Aoife kept pulling, and kept pulling, and kept pulling, until at long last, she saw Hadeon’s hand.

Taking it, she pulled him free as well.

Once he was out on the sand, Aoife checked to see that he was breathing. When she could not feel his breath, she wept and put her cheek to his. Her tears fell on his skin, warm against the cold of him.

It was then that Hadeon drew a ragged breath and coughed himself awake.

“You stupid boy!” she cried, laughing. She kissed him right on the mouth, hugging him about the neck and said “You lied to save Mims. You lied to save Jacky! Why didn’t you lie to save me so you could save yourself, too?”

“I couldn’t think to,” Hadeon said, looking dazed for all the affection. “I made you the necklace, and I wanted to tell you I was sweet on you; I thought maybe I could tell you, before I got et, but then the beast went too fast, and there I went.”

“Sweet on me?” Aoife said, pushing bright hair back from her wide eyes.

“Aye,” Hadeon confessed, blushing red to match. “Love you, I do.”

With all the dangers past, certain we all would live, Aoife kissed Hadeon again, and let him put the necklace round her throat. “Love you, I do,” she said right back to him.

Hadeon smiled the smile of a boy who barely cared he’d saved the world. All he knew was that he’d saved his, and she had saved him right back. “Happy Birthday, Aoife.”

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DeathWatch No. 147 – We Are All Monsters

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #147 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘DeathWatch’ then go to ‘#0 – A Beginning’ and read from there, or go find the issue # you remember, and catch up from there!

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *

Danival wasn’t wrong when he mentioned Garrett had been softened by being a professor — but he didn’t know the strength and resourcefulnessGarrett had cultivated over so many years alone.

In less than twenty-four hours, Garrett had not only cleared the wasted lands, but had managed to get himself more food, different clothing, and a motorbike that was all but rusted out, and yet ran with a low purr.

He didn’t even have to kill anyone to get it, either.

He covered his body in layers of dyed fabric, wore gloves, and ringed his eyes in heavy kohl. With his thick black hair and his face covered in travel grime, it would take more than a moment to discern he did not belong, and he hoped it would be enough to get past whatever checkpoints might lay between him and Ilona proper.

His contacts within the armed forces, besides Danival, had forged his papers, and given him a general idea of where he would need to look; though Ilona itself was massive, when it sent along the list of the confirmed dead, it was because those soldiers were actively catalogued by the government and sent back. What would likely follow in six months would be a list of those who died in captivity, though they would be listed as presumed dead, and only pieces of their bodies would be returned, if that. What might never come back was a list of those who’d been salvaged. Kept. Used for other purposes.

What Garrett knew was that many in Ilona kept slaves, however, indentured servants, chained warriors, pack mules they’d blinded and muted if necessary. He was certain from the intelligence he’d been given, and from his own gut feeling, unable to be ignored, that the boys were alive, and in Ilona. They were likely in chains. They might even be mutilated. Maimed. The palace would have had first pick, and would’ve chosen anyone with a strong body or particular talents. Anyone that could be easily broken. Young men with little experience of the world, if they weren’t injured beyond use, would’ve been exactly what they picked.

What he didn’t know was that though the official policy was monstrous, the enforced policy was significantly more humane… unless someone needed an example to be made.

Immanis Venator was precisely what his people desired him to be, when they needed him to be it. Occasionally, he was nearly that in a fit of pique. With Jet, however, he’d grown significantly more complacent, happy to let things lie, less likely to be horrific.

The coming hunt that Garrett saw advertised on bar telescreens and window displays was the one passion truly belonging to Immanis. He hadn’t hunted in so long, the thought of it thrilled his blood. That his Guardian would join him in it was as though two suns had taken to the heavens, to shine upon him.

He poured that grace out onto his peoples, and lavished them with gifts; while he lay tangled in the palace with Jet, while his world assumed the Guardian lay in wedded bliss with the Princess, palace guards and servants took carts out into the streets and distributed coin, cakes, spices, jewels, and other favors.

It was to this offered delight that Garrett entered Ilona — he rode his motorbike in on streets full of flower petals and paint dust, through crowds of joyous, singing people. The scents of cinnamon, of turmeric, of street dust and frying foods, incenses, drying laundries, the sounds of vendors calling their deals, children playing, running to schools, dogs barking, everything full of color and life and musical sound; a world apart from the gas and horseshit choked streets of Centralis with their blaring horns and silent march of workers headed to factories, the sterile, grey misery of the Academy.

Garrett pulled down the fabric that had been covering his mouth and nose, and breathed in memories, letting them flood him, stopping only when he heard the familiar strain of temple bells. He covered his face again and blinked back a sudden, hot rush of tears, forced down the memory of stone floors covered in blood and children. For a moment, his breath threatened to seize; he turned into a narrow alley and parked the motorbike, leaning against a stone wall, panting harshly.

“We are all monsters,” he told himself quietly. “All of us. I’m not here to atone. I’m not here to exact vengeance. I’m here to find those boys, and bring them home.”

He pulled a few abandoned tarps over the bike and left it; it might come in handy later, if it wasn’t stolen, but for now, it’d served its purpose. He had to find out if any slaves from the downed ships had been distributed from the Palace — there were plenty of men and women and children in collars, some well-kept, some a little more ragged than others, but they were quiet and busy. They seemed used to the work of it, and none of them bore any of the likely tattoos airmen often had, or carried themselves as soldiers would.

He spent days searching the markets, nights in bars and hostels, sought out Ilonans who would not be likely to be believed if they accused him of being some kind of spy, and paid for information in both coin and pain. He learned of the strange creature known as the Guardian, and its ghostly presence on the streets. Garrett studied pictures of the creature, newsclippings, advertisement reels. He watched children play in the streets, dressed in black, their faces painted garishly, swinging play swords painted black and shining. He learned of the city’s love for its Guardian, and the gift that had been given to the Prince when the Guardian married the Princess. He finally learned the horror of the wedding day massacre, heard the stories of the way the palace’s floors had run red with blood.

He learned that over a hundred Alliance soldiers had died that day, and the rest had been sent to the dungeons, the block, or selected to be in the hunt.

Marketplace theatre re-enacted the gory scene daily; people cheered when the actors who played their Prince, with his flashing eyes and his magnificent tattoos, ordered the deaths of the Centralites — what gave Garrett such pause was that he’d assumed the soldiers had been killed by Palace guards in some kind of hard-fought battle. Instead, he watched the play acted out again and again; men and women he knew would have been taught to survive above all else took the knives that had been given them… and slit their own throats. “It must be propaganda,” he first told himself quietly, but the longer he stayed, searching for more information, the more he began to believe the wild tales told about the Prince, and the Guardian, and their powers. The more he believed them, the harder it was to keep himself on task — he knew the Kriegs would invade within the near future. Could the entire invasion be stopped merely by the Prince giving an order? Could an invasion be fought back by a single man who could not die?

Would whole squadrons of soldiers kill themselves at a word?

Would Danival slit his own throat?

“I cannot stop a war on my own,” Garrett chided himself, even as he imagined crushing the throat of the beloved Prince of Ilona. “I’m here to find the boys. And bring them home.”

And yet, his memories whispered. And yet. You were a monster before, Alec Garrett. Your country may need you to be, again.

* * *

NEXT

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Pieces

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Catastrophe Jones

Do you have any idea
how you left me?
Shattered, cut to shreds.
I peeled myself away
from the bottom of the bottle
because I had to,
but then I was just floating there,
drowning.
Fifty years,
do you even remember?
It was the blink of an eye for you
but I lost generations;
I lost my whole world.
I still exist
in fragments.
I still exist in memory,
only in pieces.
Wake up.
Wake up
and let me out.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

DeathWatch No. 146 – Did I Not Mention This Is Difficult?

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #146 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘DeathWatch’ then go to ‘#0 – A Beginning’ and read from there, or go find the issue # you remember, and catch up from there!

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *

Flying over the world, Garrett watched the green give way to grey — once they hit the blasted borderlands, he felt an odd calm settle over him. This was really happening. He was really doing this. He would slip into Ilona and find the boys, dead or alive, and bring them home. He felt he owed it to them, and in a strange way, owed it to Danival, though he couldn’t have explained why, if pressed.

As simple as the plan seemed, he felt his heart in his throat even now that there was little point to turning back. Danival had agreed to help him, and that meant they would be traveling to the Ruins — one of the only places the Ridge was passable.

While further north, Centralis had sent scouting ships through the Notch, they had once sent waves of men through the low passes of the borderlands, the ruined cities in the foothills served as a reminder of the weapons used during wars of ages past — but no one who’d stayed long in the borderlands lived a good life, afterwards.

Even the Ilonans could not man outposts within the horrors of these foothills; the abandoned airfields onto which Garrett had planned to parachute wasn’t even theirs — it had been built and destroyed by some divine touch long ago, the scorched handprint marring an otherwise luscious sea of green and gold hills.

He remembered crossing through the very edges of the borderlands when he was younger, droves and droves of foot soldiers picked up and dropped off to make their incursions into enemy territory. While there was a pass that seemed perfectly workable, soldiers had long ago learned never to linger in the greyed and wasted lands — after days of trudging through the spoiled earth, they would bleed from the gums, lose teeth. Hair would fall out in clumps, and skin would begin to fester. He’d heard awful tales of men squatting out their own insides while in the latrines.

As if war wasn’t torment enough.

The Ilonans felt safe enough that no soldiers would get through — on foot, they died before ever making it out of the borderlands, and the ships that attempted getting through the pass all suffered catastrophic failures, either of their navigational instruments, or their aetheric fuel tanks. The pass itself was littered with hundreds of airship carcasses and thousands of soldiers.

It would be a veritable goldmine for any crew who could get in and out to scavenge, but the risks were a horrorshow at best.

Danival soared on without hesitation; and his hands held the piloting controls with no sign of tension or fear, while Alec watched the mountains loom ever closer. “I could chute here–” Alec began.

“Don’t be a fool,” Danival said, but not harshly. “If we don’t cross, Alec, you’ll die in the blighted lands. You promised me this wasn’t actually a suicide mission, or I wouldn’t have brought you here.”

“It will be suicide to try to fly all the way through the pass, Dani,” Garrett sighed.

“I’m a lot better at this than you give me credit for,” Danival said quietly. “Just give me continuous readings until the instruments don’t work anymore.”

Garrett fell silent except for reading out the numbers, and when the dials began to simply spin, he murmured, “That’s it. You’re on your own.” He gripped the armrests of his seat and breathed slowly, deeply.

In the pilot’s seat, Danival set his jaw and watched out the front, relying only on his senses to get them through the mist-soaked pass, pulling up and leveling off, banking left or right as he needed to.

The dizzying swoops left Garrett breathless; he watched as Danival maneuvered the plane skillfully, but felt a low whisper of dread begin to clutch at his belly, struggling to take hold. His eyes focused on every nuance of Danival’s expression, from the way he narrowed his eyes to the way his brow furrowed, trying to understand if the man still believed he had control over the situation. High winds buffeted the plane about; and as the whole thing groaned and shuddered, it dropped a few dozen feet, and Garrett felt his stomach pull up into his throat. The rising, choking feel of it gave him a sudden moment of panic.

“Dani, I l–,” Alec blurted aloud.

“No!” Danival shouted, audibly incredulous. “Did I not mention this is difficult? I said I could do it. I didn’t say it would be easy. Now please, Alec. Please, when you come back from Ilona, when I’m done invading the damned place, if you still want to talk… then we can talk. Tighten your buckle–”

Garrett opened his mouth, but the ship rolled hard to port, and he found himself half dangling above Danival as the man carefully flew them through the blighted pass of Damnation Ridge. Turbulence left him dizzied, and he passed out, surrendering to the whorling mists of the mountain.

* * *

When he woke, Danival was patting his face, his expression urgent. “We can’t stay here, Alec. You either have to come with me, or you have to get moving.”

“Fuck,” Garrett whispered to himself, getting up, groaning as he rubbed his eyes, trying to dispel the pounding headache lodged behind them. “You landed?”

“Of course I landed.” Danival didn’t bother to sound offended, but did roll his eyes. “And then I carried you out here. Now get up. I got you as far as I knew I could go before the plane would be noticed, but you’ll still need to hurry. More than a day here and–”

“I know,” Garrett sighed. “I know — you can’t stay either. Is this my duffel? Good. Right then. Go,” he said, gesturing for Danival to get back to his plane.

“Do you have everything you need?” Danival looked reluctant to leave.

Garrett felt a tug at his heart as he watched the man lingering in the hatch of his prop plane. He had a distinct memory of trying to blurt something inappropriately timed (and perhaps only panic-induced) at his erstwhile lover, and his cheeks began to burn. “Silly time to be asking now, isn’t it?” he wondered, walking back to him. “Go, Dani,” he urged. “You’ve already brought me further than is safe. Your country wants you home, and any chaos you cause coming down from the north will only help me get those boys. Are you really going to lead a charge?”

“Allt mun falla aur moshchyu av Krieg,” Danival said, lifting his chin.

“All will fall before the might of the Krieg.” His smile, while fond, was still somewhat sad.

Danival nodded, insisting, “All, Alec. Because we are a mighty people.”

“That’s true. And I’ve only just realized that sometimes, the last option is worth taking, instead of withering to ash, my mighty Krieg,” Garrett said, looking pained. “But even so, I don’t want you dying.”

“Ah, Alec, I am without fear,” Danival laughed, offering out a hand. “I have survived this long; my heart’s blood will not run on the blade of any mad Prince or any of his followers. It’s you who should be careful. Your days as a professor may have made you soft.”

Garrett rolled his eyes, shaking his head, thinking of Olivier. Remembering Holden’s expression when Garrett had grown angry to react was both shaming and hilarious at once. He reached out and clasped Danival’s hand, and was not surprised to be pulled into an embrace that was as achingly warm as it was bone-jostling. He rested his cheek on the Krieg’s chest, briefly, marveling at how much larger than he Danival was. “By the skies but I’d forgotten you’re massive. Even for a Krieg,” Garrett chuckled.

“Always was. My mother said I’d never stop growing,” Danival laughed. “Goodbye, Alec.” One massive hand held Garrett’s; the other reached up and so briefly cupped the man’s cheek.

For the barest shard of a moment, Alec held his breath, something in his heart pounding fiercely, demanding, awake and alive and singing.

The moment ended, and Danival released him, seeming to have almost startled himself. He let go, stepping back, nodding as if to say ‘that’s enough’.

Alec Garrett watched the plane take back off, and bank to go northwest, leaving him behind most definitely on the wrong side of Damnation Ridge. As it finally disappeared from sight into the mists he gave a long, low sigh, hoisted his pack up over his shoulders, and got to moving.

* * *

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