Chapter 2: Lulled

It took over an hour for Tybalt to crawl out of his armor. Between his aching body and the warped metal, nothing removed as it ought. Lying on his back, he blindly grasped at the latches on his chest piece. As he pried open one of the damaged latches, his fingers caught the jagged metal, tearing into his flesh. Tybalt cursed into the night sky and knocked his head against the dirt in frustration.

Reaching for a hunk of metal, he managed to bang open the broken latch. Pressing upon the chest plate, he shifted it open. Though still caught beneath his shoulder guards, removing the heavy chest plate felt freeing. His lungs inhaled with a sense of freedom. Tybalt knew the shock of the explosion had broken his ribs, but, even in pain, a steady breath seemed a great joy. Reaching beneath his armored shoulders, he unfastened the interior connections. The pauldrons tumbled from his body, looking like the split shell of an oyster.

With only a few straps left to undo, he freed his upper body. Tybalt brought himself into a seated position. The act of sitting up revealed the extent of his injuries. His abdomen felt as though it had been repeatedly punched. The shock of the explosion must have done considerable damage to his organs. Tybalt removed his padded under-armor and lifted the hem of his long-sleeve shirt, revealing several splotches of dark blue contusions. He touched a tender spot beneath his right ribs, feeling the sticky warmth of blood. He touched the tips of his fingers together. Definitely blood.

He started to work on his lower body. After removing the various locks and clasps from his cuisse and greaves, he pulled his legs free from their protective carapace. As he did so, he realized things were worse than he expected. He crawled out of the armor and rolled onto the grass.

Inspecting his legs, he saw the padded under-armor had been cut through by a slender piece of shrapnel, which had pierced his left greave and burrowed deep into his shin. The wound still oozed a gentle spring of blood.

Tybalt looked around for something to staunch the wound but regretted the decision. The lifeless horizon stretched out before him, the darkness of the night making the wreckage of combat seem more ominous and disastrous than it was. In the distance, he saw a murder of crows take flight from the nearby forest.

Although so much had happened mere hours ago, the only evidence of the big rigs were the large divots of mud leading north. The wreckage of the vintage buggy lay scattered on the ground, its angular destruction caught glimmers of starlight. Tybalt realized their mercenary vehicle was nowhere to be seen. The drivers of Mercury Transport must have taken it. From his current vantage, he could not see whether Unity’s body lay dead in the distant field.

Instead, he brought his eyes to his immediate surroundings. Tybalt saw his brother’s armor nearby. Several bullet holes pierced it, and shrapnel marred its pristine exterior. He needed to wait to see if Bassian had survived the attack.

Then, he turned his head to see small tongues of fire encircling the charred armor of Herostratus. The fuel tank for the flamethrower had erupted, leaving only fragments upon the operator’s back. Thick, greasy black smoke spiraled from Herostratus. Tybalt knew his friend had burned to death. The evidence was clear.

He gazed at the spot where he had seen the grenade hit Spectre. He knew there wouldn’t be much left, but still, Tybalt gazed upon that patch of dark earth. An assortment of unidentifiable metal and plastic scattered the field. Even if Tybalt wanted to bury his fellow mercenaries, there wouldn’t be much of Spectre to gather and inter into a grave. Only the evil of Mercury Transport survived them.

Tybalt grabbed the long sleeve of his undershirt and ripped it off with a few yanks. Using a sharp chunk of debris, he cut through the fabric, making a long rectangle. He used the cut sleeve to bandage his left shin and calf, tying the bandage tight and wincing at the pressure. He tried to stand but fell back to the ground in pain. He would need to drag himself to safety and find some sort of crutch. First, however, he dragged himself to his brother’s armor.

Turning his back to his destination, he pushed himself across the ground. Using his good leg and his arms, he propelled himself to his brother. He pulled himself onto the large equipment and searched for life in his brother’s face. The visor had shattered, and little geometric shapes of glass surrounded the waxy paleness of his brother’s face. Dried blood caked the edges of his mouth and nose.

Tybalt gazed into the face of death.

He began to weep.

Every memory of childhood, of adolescence, rushed into his mind. Those years in construction, those years in the militia. Every single mission they underwent as mercenaries. Every moment of happiness, anger, and sorrow. Everything came back to him and manifested in hot, wet tears.

Tybalt wept until he could no more.

The pain of his heaving chest became too much. The emotions were out. No one witnessed this moment of weakness, this moment of tenderness. Good. There would be no more of it in the future.

With a few more painful pushes and pulls, Tybalt advanced to Herostratus’ body. He patted out a few flames that continued to smolder near the body. He quickly tapped the armor with his fingers, testing the heat. The armor still radiated warmth but was no longer hot to touch. Tybalt looked through the cracks in the visor, seeing nothing but charred flesh.

He observed the world around him. Nothing substantial of Unity or Spectre could be seen. The only other monuments to death were the corpses of the men working for Mercury Transport. He had no desire to check their bodies. Let their dead bury them.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Tybalt scooted himself to the dirt road, avoiding all sorts of detritus. Frustrated with his lack of mobility, he searched the wreckage of the vintage buggy. He grabbed one of the long mufflers that girded the sides of the vehicle. Using the twisted metal as a makeshift cane, Tybalt hoisted himself to his feet.

He looked down the horizon and saw nothing but endless road.

* * *

Tybalt hobbled for hours. The moon descended, and a cascade of red fingers of dawn flooded the sky. Its soft glow made his journey more pleasant. For hours, he struggled with his pain -- the challenge more mental than physical. He needed to keep going. He needed to survive. What was a little blood, a little bruising? He staked out small plots in the distance and made a game for himself.

I can reach that tree before I count to a hundred.

Half-distracted, he made every milestone. Yet, after several hours of movement, he needed a substantial rest. He could no longer get by with five-minute pauses.

He found an overturned boulder a little further down and made it his next destination. When he reached it, he sat with the feebleness of an elderly man and used the cane for support. He stretched out his wounded leg. An assortment of injuries called for attention. The bruising along his upper body began to hurt as he rested on the boulder. Tybalt could only try to ignore all of it by thinking of something else.

He thought of the snaggle-toothed grin of that driver. Tybalt swore he would find that man and kill him. He would make that man suffer. He would find out if that man had any siblings and kill them first. He would make that man watch as he killed his brothers and sisters. Parents. Spouse. Pets. It didn’t matter. Everyone around that man would die.

Then, who else?

He thought of the administration for Mercury Transport. Tybalt swore he would single-handedly dismantle the whole organization. He would find its leader, its board members, its stakeholders, and exact his revenge. He would find their headquarters and burn it to the ground. He would make sure that every last marking of ‘Mercury Transport’ was struck from history.

Who else? Who else?

He thought of his superiors, the ones who sent him and his team on this mission. They should have known the severity of the task. Three trucks and a buggy for five people? Well, four guys and a girl. Still, the job had been too much for their numbers. Where was his reinforcement? Where was the backup plan? Why was their intel so bad? He needed answers, and, if he didn’t like those answers, well, he would kill them too.

Immoral narratives spun in his mind, leaving webs of hate and stories of revenge. He would take up his role in this human tragedy. He did not see himself as a villain; he was a man wronged and injured. He was a man seeking restitution for trauma and calamity. The only way for him to find peace against a cruel world was to extract his own cruelty, his own pound of flesh.

As these thoughts stirred within his mind, the sound of motorcycles roared in the distance. Moving south, in the same direction Tybalt had been walking, five bikers drove with maddening speed. The men on the bikes were dressed completely in black leather. They wore black helmets which covered their faces with a near beak-like resemblance.

Tybalt struggled to his feet and began to wave to them with his good arm. The bikers made no attempt to slow. They simply charged past this injured man and rode down the dirt highway. Tybalt caught a glimpse of their back patches. The silhouette of a large black bird with extended wings gazed back at Tybalt. Above the bird, in gothic black letters, read: CORVUS.

Tybalt looked to the shrinking image of these five bikers and spat at their lack of sympathy. These men had no time for an injured man like him. Fie upon them! He slunk back to his position on the boulder, stewing in his own negativity, watching the sun ascend ever higher in the sky. The long shadows of the dawn light shrank.

As he waited, he peered down the road. This time, rather than hearing the roar of machinery, he noticed two solitary figures walking with a donkey. The donkey pulled a wooden wagon with the aid of a harness. The wagon had two imperfect wooden wheels, which knocked against the dirt highway. The wagon had none of the sophistication of modern machinery. No shocks. No safety. Hardly a nail in its construction. The whole thing was assembled from crudely hewn wood pieces.

Tybalt decided to stay seated as the two men approached him. His expectations were low. He did not believe that these men would take the time to hear the sob story of a man like himself—a stranger upon a boulder, bloodied and bruised.

“Hail!” said the older man. Clearly, the two men were related. It looked as though it were father and son.

“Hello,” Tybalt said. His greeting fell flat from his mouth.

“What happened to you?” the older man asked.

“It’s a long story. I don’t care to tell it.”

“Understandable. Understandable,” the older man said, looking into the distance.

The younger man looked to the older man, waiting for a cue.

The three of them waited in silence, each unsure what to say to the other.

“Well,” the older man spoke with a drawn-out drawl, “where be your destination?”

Tybalt gleaned his teeth with his tongue. He felt the looseness of them. He was thankful that he did not lose one of them in the explosion. He kept thinking to himself.

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, well, if you have no destination, you have either reached it or will never reach it.” The older man looked to the younger with an innocent smile. “In any case, goodbye.”

“Wait!” Tybalt caught himself in surprise. He did not realize how desperate he was for human interaction. All he had in his survival were the company of ghosts, imagined conversations with friends no longer living.

“Can I hitch a ride?”

“Where to?” the older man asked.

“Wherever. What is the closest township or city?”

“Ah, that be Carrion Hill. It’s a little further south from here. Unfortunately, my son and I shall not be wandering down yonder. It would be too much out of the way for us.”

“I see,” Tybalt said beneath his breath. Within his chest, he began to fill with spite, with anger toward this man and his son.

“But, Papa, can we not bring him some of the way? We can place him in the wagon and bring him as far as our homestead.”

The older man’s eyebrow raised. His son made an offer, which ought not to be retracted.

“Very well. What say you, stranger?”

Tybalt felt a shimmer of gratitude.

“That would be much appreciated,” he said with a genuine smile.

“Come, let me help you,” the younger man said. He gave his shoulder to Tybalt, supporting the weight of the much larger and stronger man. Tybalt limped to the back of the wagon. He scooted his butt onto the rough wood and moved to the very back. He threw his arm over the wooden sides of the wagon.

The older man heighed his donkey. The creature began to move, pulling the loaded wagon behind. Every single rut and stone in the road caused a rumble of pain throughout Tybalt’s body. He began to regret the kind gesture. Overcome with fatigue, Tybalt’s eyes wavered. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but, as he drifted, a sudden jolt from the wagon would stir him awake. He felt his anxiety spike. The fears of the previous day filled his heart with an intensity for combat. His body was in no shape to fight, but his mind, stirring with a brief influx of adrenaline, pulsed life into his limbs. Tybalt flexed his hands into fists, only to catch the friendly smile of the young man. Tybalt eased himself back into his uncomfortable ride and watched the world fade behind him.