Gull wasn’t angry anymore. She was only now realising just how angry she had always been all the time. She couldn’t be angry around Maeggy though, she was too happy, too bright, for that. So she was slowly letting go, forgetting all the pain and rage she had been through.
They had been travelling the Hallowed Realm helping people. At first Gull had resisted, she couldn’t help people, what did a gladiatrix know about that? She was just there to beat up anyone who tried to hurt Maeggy. But gradually as her rage and pain had faded she had started to help people as well.
There had been a girl, in a village that was slowly flooding, and while Maeggy sorted out plans to move the village with the elders, Gull had talked with the girl and explained to her what was going on. She hadn’t been very good at it, she wasn’t good at talking to adults, nevermind children. But the girl had been enraptured by her scars and so she’d had plenty of opportunity to practise. Eventually she’d convinced the girl that moving somewhere else would be an adventure and she’d run off happily to tell her parents.
Then, in the next village there had been an assault. Gull had been ready for a furious fight when they finally found the culprit but Maeggy had warned her that that wasn’t likely to happen. Eventually, sure enough, they’d split up and Gull had found him. He’d had a knife and was huddled in the corner pointing it at her with shaking hands. She’d wanted to thrash him within an inch of his life but instead she’d talked to him. He had done everything out of rage and pain just like she used to and she could understand him very well. Eventually she convinced him to put the knife down and come quietly. No one else was hurt and he wasn’t hanged, as he’d expected to be.
So they had continued on like that and there was less and less violence as they did. Maeggy didn’t speak about it much but Gull was beginning to think there had maybe only been violence at the start because she’d been looking for it. Indeed, when they’d faced the sorcerer and his entire army at Karasar, they’d driven them away without any bloodshed at all. Well, Maeggy had, Gull had mostly watched from afar with fear and dread. Maeggy never seemed to have any fear or dread. She’d asked about it but Maeggy just laughed, she claimed nobody could possibly want to hurt her, as charming as she was, so what did she have to be afraid of? Gull wasn’t sure about that, she’d certainly wanted to hurt Maeggy when they’d first met, and she’d seen plenty of people get angry enough to attack her or almost attack her as they’d travelled. She just seemed to have a knack for positioning herself just out of reach of anyone too dangerous. She also never got sick, even when they were helping towns infested with sickness Maeggy would be fine. Gull had yet to learn that trick.
The war came and things began to grow violent again. Deserters and mercenaries roamed the land taking what they wanted and refusing to listen to reason, especially when it was delivered by a strange woman with a floppy hat and a long staff. Gull had learned to fight with weapons, something she’d never done back in the arena. They had to be careful in the war, there were fewer and fewer problems that could be solved without violence. But Maeggy always seemed to find all the ones that could.
They’d driven out drunkards that had taken over a town. Negotiated a peace between two clans of bandits intent on killing each other. Saved many female prisoners from groups of deserters who seemed to take far more than they could possibly need. Maeggy explained that in doing so they would stretch themselves thin in terms of food and guards and eventually collapse into infighting, but that tended to only hurt the prisoners more. So they would sneak in in the night and inspire hope among the imprisoned before causing some huge distraction and evacuating as many as possible. The deserter groups were never well disciplined and tended to collapse in on themselves as soon as something went wrong. Gull and Maeggy had grown very good at causing things to go wrong.
The two of them lay on the grass at the top of a crest and watched the lights of the camp below. It was a big camp, bigger than any they’d broken into before. The war was over and these men weren’t deserters anymore, they were full soldiers, trained and hardened in battle and then abandoned when their side lost. Men stood outside the camp peering into the darkness. Three of them. Three guards, that was unheard of, most camps had one on a good day. This was going to be difficult.
“There’s a lot of guards,” Gull grunted.
Maeggy grinned in the moonlight. “I know, isn’t it exciting.”
Gull grunted again. That wasn’t the word she’d have used.
“Oh don’t be like that,” Maeggy tutted. “This way if they see anything they might assume some other guard will deal with it. With only one guard you don’t have that possibility.”
“I’d rather there were no guards.”
“But then who would be there to marvel at our escape?”
Gull snorted. “They won’t be marvelling. They’ll be mad.”
“People are only mad if you’ve impressed them or disappointed them, and we won’t be disappointing them.”
“Sure.”
“Careful, you might disappoint me.”
“You’re already mad.”
Mad Maeggy nodded happily, her floppy hat swaying on her head. “Very true, very true.”
Inside the camp Goran looked over their supplies, pacing angrily through the tent and peering at the untidy piles of food that had been thrown together. They were much smaller piles than they had been yesterday, too small he knew. They’d taken on all those blasted women from that town they’d raided and now the food they’d scrounged together wasn’t nearly enough. He wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, letting the men do something as stupid as that. Could they not have their fun and then leave them behind. Taking them put so much more pressure on every part of the group. It was childish, that’s what it was, he was dealing with children.
But those children were all well armed and tended to only listen to him when he gave them vaguely what they wanted, so he had bent to their requests. He was regretting it now.
Of course they’d been happy to do as he said and not take any prisoners up until now. That was because he was taking them all into the forest and there weren’t any women in the forest. They would only be in there for a few months at most while the Royal Army hunted down bands like theirs. Could the men not restrain themselves that long?
But apparently not, so here they were, loaded up with prisoners they couldn’t feed and heading into a forest where places to pillage would be few and far between. They’d have to hunt he supposed, he hoped someone knew something about hunting, he certainly didn’t.
He dragged aside a huge barrel of ale someone had taken. Ridiculously impractical, they couldn’t take something like that with them. Although judging by how light it was the men were already making good progress on it. Behind the barrel was a pile of breads and pastries taken from a bakery. He sniffed them and picked some up, a rat scampered away into the darkness and he cursed. Sure enough most of the breads had been reduced to crumbs. He flung the loaf he was holding down and cursed some more. This was ridiculous, the food they needed was being eaten away and the men insisted on stealing things they couldn’t use. He resisted the urge to knock the barrel over, that wouldn’t go over well with the men.
He turned and stormed from the tent, trying to think of what to do about their supply problem. He’d have to put someone in charge of sorting that, preserving and rationing the food they had and also planning how to get more. This wasn’t the sort of thing he’d signed up for when he’d corralled all the men who’d been pillaging that town together. Back then it had all been cheering and laughing as he led them wherever they wanted to go and organised ways for them to get whatever they wanted. It had been liberating back then, freed from the rigid command structure of the army they’d been able to do anything, take anything. But there were consequences for living like that. There were always consequences.
He saw movement in the shadows between the tents. Too fast movement, like someone running or jumping. Who’d be doing anything like that this time of night?
Groaning in frustration he rounded the corner to see Endran, one of the archers from Avus, twisting the arms of some woman who’d been trying to escape him. Goran sighed inwardly as Endran looked up at him happily. “Don’t worry Goran, I’ve got everything under control,” he grinned.
Goran looked at the girl who was on the verge of tears. “This all better be worth it. We ain’t got enough food for all these women, we hardly got enough food for all of us!”
Endran’s smile diminished somewhat. “Well-”
“Shut up! Take this inside anyway, I don’t want to see you out here when I’m trying to get this place functional!” Goran stormed into his tent and muttered angrily to himself as he searched for a candle. Men like Endran only ever thought about one thing and that one thing wasn’t going to serve them very well in the forest.
“-I’m trying to get this place functional!” the tall man shouted angrily before storming into his tent. Gull waited patiently behind that tent as the short man’s response died on his lips. That didn’t put him out for long though, he still had a girl in his arms and soon his sick smile returned. He turned his attention back to her and Gull moved, ramming a dagger through the back of his neck. He squeaked a little bit and then collapsed, Gull grabbed the girl and pulled her to her feet, holding her bloody knife to her lips.
Stolen novel; please report.
The girl looked at her with wet, terrified eyes, but she seemed to understand the message to stay quiet. Gull took the short man’s knife and then led the girl away through the dark tents. Hopefully if anyone saw them it would look just like it had before, some man leading one of the prisoners off to have his way with her. But she didn’t intend for anyone to see them.
Outside Maeggy was throwing rocks in the bushes with great accuracy and the three guards were walking slowly into the darkness, weapons drawn and pointed. Gull led the girl the other way and they looped all the way around the camp through the night to meet back up at the meeting place.
“How’d it go?” Maeggy asked.
Gull grunted in response. “Pretty good. No one saw me.”
Maeggy beamed. “Excellent, they won’t even notice anything happened!”
“Y- you killed someone...” the girl said in shock.
Maeggy’s smile disappeared. “They might notice that.”
Gull shrugged. “It happens.”
The girl seemed even more shocked at that, Maeggy just seemed disappointed. “Anyhow,” Maeggy continued. “You’re rescued, congratulations. Welcome to the free free world where less people will try to hurt you. But we aren’t just here to rescue you, we want to rescue everyone else as well. So what can you tell us about what’s going on in the camp?”
“W-w-well...” the girl was still shaking in terror. Gull had little patience for that sort of thing, and she knew that standing around with her bloody weapons and hands probably wasn’t helping.
“I’ma clean this,” she held up the bloody knife and then wandered off. Behind her the girl opened up to Maeggy about the situation in the camp.
When Gull returned the girl had gone to sleep and Maeggy was looking grim. Or at least, she wasn’t smiling, which was grim for her.
“It’s not looking good,” Maeggy said with a pout. “Apparently they’re all split up, each woman is kept in a different tent with whichever man took her.”
Gull grunted, that was going to be a pain. Usually they just had to break everyone out of one place, rather than going to each tent individually.
“They’re also well disciplined I think,” Maeggy continued. “Or better disciplined than most deserters.”
Gull nodded, they’d expected as much.
“Apparently you saw a man, Goran. He’s in charge, he’s pretty scary apparently, but he doesn’t have any women with him. Good for us but I think that means he’s even scarier. Men like that usually know a lot about what’s going on.”
Gull nodded, this was not looking easy, but she was confident Maeggy could figure something out, Maeggy always figured something out. They settled down for the night, Maeggy had no idea what they were going to do.
Goran swore he only got ten minutes sleep before one of the guards was rudely waking him up.
“What is it?” he growled, fighting back the dregs of sleep to get to his feet.
“It’s Endran,” the guard said nervously. “We found him when we came back this morning.”
Goran groaned, what had Endran gotten himself into this time? He walked outside the tent and nearly stepped on the dead body that lay outside it.
He cursed loudly and knelt down to look at the body. Right here, right outside his tent this had happened. He was too worn out, too tired, when he’d been in the army he’d have heard it, he’d have been here. Endran was missing his knife and there was a knife wound in his neck, the back of his neck.
“We figure he took one of the girls out and she must’a stabbed him,” one of the guards said. They were all there, beside the body.
Goran nodded, that would make sense. But that girl hadn’t looked in a stabbing mood and Endran was an archer, he was strong, much stronger than she’d looked.
“No,” Goran said. “There’s something else going on here. Someone else killed him.” He stood up and looked out at the hills around them. “Send out a search party to find out who.”
Maeggy and Gull discussed plans, or rather the lack of plans. There was no trick this time, no way to lure everyone away from the tent with the women in it and then break them out. They were spread out, they were everywhere. They would have to lure everyone away from the entire camp and that wasn’t going to happen.
They watched as a few men mounted up and rode off, looking for the girl who’d escaped. They were already on alert, things were already difficult.
“We should hide,” Gull said and Maeggy agreed, they’d gotten good at hiding.
“There were some trees over by that hill,” Maeggy pointed. “They’ll never find us in there.”
The girl was still with them watching nervously. “Do you have a plan?” she asked. She was a lot more confident now than she had been last night, probably Maeggy’s influence Gull imagined.
“Not yet,” Maeggy said. “We need some sort of distraction. In this case a huge distraction,” she spread her arms wide in the sky as she said it, her hat flopping about.
“Are those... easy to make?” the girl asked.
“Well-” Maeggy responded but she didn’t finish because at that moment the sky turned red.
Goran watched as some of the men buried Endran. At least that was one advantage to leadership, you rarely had to do any of the grunt work. Not that there was an absence of work at his level though.
“Dig it deeper!” he shouted as the men looked like they were about to give up. They carried on digging. He was the first to admit that Endran was a horrible person but he was going to give him a proper grave. He believed everyone at least deserved a proper grave.
He felt a heat on his back and turned to see the sky grow red as roaring motes of white light streaked across it. The burning sky beat down on him and he bent before it, shielding his eyes with his hand. The roar was terrible, the burning was terrible as the falling stars plummeted to earth. They hit miles and miles away, behind the hills, behind the horizon. But he still felt them hit anyway. First there was the light, the enormous explosion that blinded him instantly even through his squinted eyes and raised hand. As his vision slowly cleared he felt the rumbling of the earth and heard the sound, the terrible roar of the heavens crashing to the ground. He staggered back and nearly fell into the grave. He stood there, dazed and woozy, his vision ever so slowly returning.
He blinked and blinked and blinked and then he saw a scarred woman charging through his camp, killing blinded soldiers where they stood. He staggered forward, drawing his sword to fight her. And then the second star hit.
Gull knew a distraction when she saw one and she turned and ran as soon as the sky turned red. She ran over the hill and barrelled down it, ignoring the hellish glow of the sky. She looked only at the camp. Men were emerging from their tents to look at the sky, none of them were looking at her.
She didn’t look at the explosion but it blinded her all the same. Luckily, she’d spent years emerging from dark dark cages into the bright arena. She didn’t stay blind for long.
By the time she could see again she was in the camp and she’d drawn her sword, she killed one soldier, then the next, then the next. The ground started to shake and the boom of the explosion hit them drowning out any noise she might have made in her massacre.
She turned and saw Goran charging toward her and drawing his sword. She fell into one of the stances she’d learnt and then everything lit up again. She couldn’t see anything and didn’t have time to move before Goran slammed into her. Luckily he couldn’t see her either and by the time he swung she’d already bounced off him and crashed into the ground.
She was up before he could see but he was staggering away, swinging at nothing. She ducked off to kill a few more soldiers and spared a glance at the sky, there were so many. The sky was filled with falling stars, she just wanted to curl up in a corner and cover her eyes and ears against their might but she couldn’t. This was her only chance to save the women of the camp and she intended to do it now. So much for doing things without violence.
Yenna watched the scary woman run off toward the camp, ignoring the burning sky and the lights that were tearing it apart. The strange woman with the staff and the floppy hat stayed beside her and stared up at it, muttering something. What was she saying?
“No... no it can’t be... no it’s impossible... I... I stopped this...”
Yenna didn’t know what that meant. Yenna didn’t know what any of this meant.
Gull stood in the middle of the camp, blood covered her sword and her arms ached from swinging it. But far worse was the pain in her ears from the constant explosions and worse still was the pain in her eyes. They were watering and everything looked wrong, it was all too bright, too fuzzy, and the sky was far far too red.
The ground had stopped shaking but she hadn’t, her legs and arms trembled and it was a struggle to stand. Fighting under that sky had really taken it out of her. And she wasn’t done yet.
Goran emerged from between the tents, squinting against the brightness and shaking just like her.
“What are you?” he asked. He was much taller and stronger than her but fear was evident in his voice. “What did you do to the sky?”
Gull calmed the ragged breathing that shook her body and stood up tall. Maybe there was one problem she could solve without violence. “I am Hathra, Scourge of Man and I come to you out of the sky to bring my wrath. These men have taken women against their will and as such I bring them death.” She smiled to herself as she stood tall, Maeggy would be proud of a speech like this. “You have not,” she continued, using the information she’d been told before. Goran’s squinted eyes went wide, she knew things about him that she shouldn’t know. “And as such I spare you provided you stay out of my way,” she thundered and stared at him, doing her best to hide the shaking and pain through her body.
“Uh... uh... right...” Goran stammered and ran away. Gull managed to stay on her feet and slowly went through the tents looking for the prisoners. The soldiers had all come out to see what was going on but their prisoners were all locked away, what a perfect distraction.
Gull returned with all the women she’d rescued soon after the battle. The sky was still red and there were burning trails all across it in the paths the falling stars had taken. Maeggy wasn’t happy which was odd. Maeggy was always happy, maybe Gull had killed too many people, she imagined that might have upset her. But she’d saved all the prisoners, that had to count for something.
“I have to go,” Maeggy said to her, she was still looking up at the sky.
“Go where?” Gull asked.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll have to go somewhere. And you can’t come with me.”
Gull frowned. “Why not? I thought we were a team-”
A tear rolled down Maeggy’s cheek and Gull’s eyes went wide, nothing like this had ever happened before. “We are, but this is something you can’t help me with. This is something no one can help me with. I need to go and clean up this mess on my own,” so spoke Maegara, thief of the Stone of Falling Stars.