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Martyr
Chapter Fourteen: Not Anymore

Chapter Fourteen: Not Anymore

“Bison…” Tyver said dreamily.

“You’re not helping,” Kaya whispered. “We’re supposed to be watching for the signal, not wondering how they taste.”

“Watchin’ cause we want t’taste,” Tyver countered. "They don't care.”

As if to make his point, one of the massive creatures turned to eye them and flicked its ears before turning away. The dim light of the morning was enough to show them hundreds of the animals, and there were likely more past the scrubby, shallow hill where the two martyrs were halfheartedly hiding.

“See?”

Kaya scowled at the thief. “It pays to be careful. I don’t want to carry your broken body back to the others and explain that your stomach got in the way of common sense.”

“Recall bison, I.” Tyver said, shrugging. “Don’ get t’close, fair.”

“We’re going to need to get close if we want to make coats out of the things.”

There was already a nip in the air. While their bodies had been changed, those changes did not include a tolerance for true winter. Thankfully Gael knew enough about leatherworking, even without what he and the others could remember, that the bison represented both food and warmth. Still, Tyver couldn’t help feeling a little sad. Kaya noticed his slump and broke off, cocking her head.

“Grew up on t’streets, I. Biggest animals were rats.” He sighed. “Always dirty. Always sick. Always livin’ from garbage n’ dead gangers. Sores. Scars. Ugly. Taste worse n’ bad. That…” He pointed at the bison grazing nearby. “That beauty. Delicious. Recall, I. But…”

“It does seem a crime, doesn't it?” Kaya said softly.

“Not first crime.”

“Probably not your last, either.”

Tyver grinned, but instead of replying he stood, pointing. She rose as well, seeing the glint of light in the distance that had caught his attention. As one, they began to roar.

While martyrdom hadn’t included a winter coat, it did come with an increased lung capacity. The noise would have hurt an ordinary human’s ear, and Tyver winced in reflex even as he bellowed. The bison who had been eying them spun and headed down the hill at a clip that a moment ago would have seemed thunderous, his fellows hot on his tail. The stampede spread in a wave and the little martyrs went hot on the herd’s heels, knives drawn.

Gael had brought down two before Wynn was even settled, knife flashing in a practiced thrust that brought the animals down hard, bodies driving furrows into the grass. The herd had already begun to turn away by then, but too slowly. A straggler came toward Wynn, faster than they could draw their knife, and…

Wynn didn’t freeze, didn’t panic, didn’t feel a wash of inherited deja vu, didn’t doubt what was about to happen. The sense of calm certainty was something more, almost dreadful in its purity. As the bison drew close enough to touch, Wynn simply planted their feet. Hands moving in perfect time, one to the beast’s muzzle and one to its horn, Wynn’s arms curved in a sharp, vicious crescent. There was a dreadful snap as the weight and momentum of the bison carried it forward, over, beyond the breaking point. Wynn’s hands released their hold in perfect time, tension easing even as the bison blew past in a confused tangle of muscle and spasming hooves.

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Another bison was close on the heels of the first, but with surprising agility turned enough that it slipped Wynn’s reach. Behind them, Wynn could hear Naomi running it down. They turned, facing their own downed animal, and felt their mind catch on the quiet horror of the moment. The bison was still alive, twitching where it lay broken, throat locked on a breath it could no longer take. Without hesitating, Wynn drew their knife and stepped forward, putting the animal out of its misery.

“God.”

Wynn turned, heat rising in their cheeks as Kaya and Tyver came to a halt. Neither of them had managed to bring down one of the animals themselves, but then that hadn’t been their job. Kaya was staring at Wynn as though… Wynn didn’t know what to make of it. A moment later she looked down at their hands, then her own. “I… I hadn’t really…”

Wynn vomited, gagging on the taste of bile as they felt a sudden urge to wash their hands, scrub them through the grass, run the broken soil between their fingers until the feeling of that awful crack was no longer echoing in their bones.

A small hand rested on their shoulder, and Wynn turned to see Tyver with a sad little smile. “Different, with t’hands. Knife shouldn’t make things easier. Does. Y’be ok, topper. Ok, I, done worse I.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

Naomi stepped forward, a hand gingerly working over her side. Evidently she’d been clipped in the stampede. Kaya answered the question by pointing at the downed bison. Even Naomi went a little green as she saw the animal’s brutally snapped neck.

“You hear the stories. Recall them. But seeing it. Doing it. Wynn, I’m sorry.”

“Easy to forget we’re children, isn’t it?” Wynn said, a shade of their usual wryness returning as they stood and wiped their mouth. “I’ll be fine. Thank you all.”

“Everyone, come on,” Gael called. “We need to work fast.”

“It’s a shame we can’t manage more of the meat,” Naomi observed, poking her side with a look of forced stoicism.

“Don’ think y’could’ve eaten that,” Tyver opined as he put the finishing touches on one of the hides. “Not a sitting.”

“It’s wasteful. You know I don’t like that.”

“They don’t seem to mind,” Gael observed, pointing a bloody finger at the birds circling overhead. More, ugly things with bare heads and dirty feathers, watched the work from the edge of the camp.

“I don’t like that either,” Naomi said. “It’s creepy, especially after the APE.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t get to carry the disruptor,” Kaya said smugly. “Makers keepers.”

“Good. Then I keep all the coats,” Gael said.

“No, you are not doing all the work,” Wynn said. “Enough is enough. You catch the food, you make the fires, you, you, you. Share the load and teach those of us who don’t know or recall useful things, why don’t you?”

“I taught Tyver to fish,” Gael said, sounding a little hurt.

“S’true! Caught fish, I!”

“Someone’s coming,” Kaya said.

The five of them were shoulder to shoulder in an instant, facing the stranger as they came crawling from the river. Terrible gashes sketched trails through the network of studs dotting the stranger’s chest, blood lining their path from the water. A fellow martyr, this one badly mauled by something.

“Monsters,” the stranger said hoarsely. “From the sky. Food. Please.”

They collapsed at the group’s feet, leaving them in stunned silence.

“Well,” Naomi said eventually. “That’s less waste.”