It was coming up on noon, and, surprisingly, nothing had tried to kill Finn all morning. It was a fresh observation he wouldn't have made a month ago, but his time outside the walls coupled with a few near death expereinces had forced a fatalistic sort of optimism upon him, one that still promised a grisly death, just not right now.
The day was young, though.
He swept his gaze from side to side, scanning the ruined road and encroaching treeline for danger more or less how he’d been taught: Look for eyes. Look for shine. Look for a way out. He saw none of those, nothing but overgrown blacktop and dense pine and shrub forest for as far as the eye could see.
After an exhausting month outside the walls, everything just kind of ran together in a green and gray blur, but they’d taught him about that too, among other things. Complacency killed. Vigilance brought victory. Sweat more in training; bleed less in battle. Always wear dry socks. There were more Ranger maxims, more than he could count, but the old wisdoms had abandoned him sometime between selection and now, most likely after he nearly bled out in the rafters of an old depot a couple weeks back.
The straps for his pack dug painfully into his shoulders, and the sticky ache at the small of his back indicated his kidney bar had rubbed him enough over the course of the day to blister. He’d need to get his pack repadded when they got back to New Hope.
The temptation to slip into a pseudo meditative state was real, but the stagnant, warm stillness of the air and the fingers of yellow discoloration in the sky warned him to stay in the present. Yellow bands up above sometimes meant a loaded supercell churning nearby. Sometimes not. If there was a storm out there, juiced up wildlife would be particularly aggressive if they crossed the Rangers’ paths.
Scanning the sky for further signs of trouble, he only saw a pair of fat wyrmlings lazily gliding on the warm updrafts to the south of the road. Their warbling calls, only partially within the human range of hearing, carried over the rangers’ heads and received an answer somewhere close by.
The sun was high, but the heat wasn’t oppressive at least. The old gray highway stretched out before him, cracked and overgrown in increasingly frequent patches of long green Johnson grass and yellow flowered weeds. Bushy trees pressed in from either side, reducing visibility to a claustrophobic 50 feet give or take.
His feeling of unease was tempered by his familiarity with this stretch of road at least. There would be an intersection coming up sometime today that would have the column leaving the highway and cutting across one of the few still standing rail bridges, the last such crossing before home.
“Sore” and “tense” were pretty much the words of the day. It was Finn’s turn to walk with one of the two salvage trailers in their little convoy, and it didn’t help his poor shoulders that Finn had the tendency to rest his arms on his rifle, which was strapped to his shoulder harness, increasing the weight and the strain on his already flagging muscles.
The only part of him that wasn’t tense to the point of ache was his right hand that gripped Eggo’s reins. The golden brown mare didn’t require a lot of guidance at this point in her career. She’d been doing the Ranger thing for longer than Finn had. For her part, she pulled her light trailer like a champ, shouldering her burden like she’d been bred for it, which she kind of was. For a while Finn had considered throwing his pack on the trailer atop all the boxes of old world junk or maybe lightening his pack to a single combat load as opposed to the double he used for endurance training, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Eggo was doing her part, having already proven herself by pulling her weight and stomping her fair share of dead heads a few days ago. Finn would do his and then some.
Suffering was supposed to make you stronger right? Or it broke your body and spirit. Then again, he was uniquely qualified to have his body broken and remade again over and over wasn’t he? He would take the hit to his stamina and Ranger on. If training was easy everyone would do it. That didn’t stop him from fantasizing about the column’s next stop where he planned to kill half of his water rations for the day. For now, though, he pretended he was a professional, if only to keep up appearances.
The other Rangers either didn’t share Finn’s discomfort or were hiding it behind stony faced stoicism born of hard won experience. Each man watched his sector for threats, constantly changing their pacing and positioning to keep from presenting too predictable a target to a sniper or a beast or worse.
Carl, their point man, wove his horse between the grassy patches of the road then down into overgrown drainage ditches, into the trees, then back again using a methodology only he could follow. He wasn’t an overly large man. Just above average in height with wiry muscle that went well with his speed and ferocity, which he employed frequently. To facilitate speed and ferocity he practically bristled with small blades, sheathes on his back, forearms, belt, thighs, feet, and places Finn wasn’t comfortable picturing. Carl’s curly black hair always dangled loosely, falling down just long enough to not interfere with his eyes, ears, or drape down to his neck. The scout wore no helmet or kevlar from the collarbone up.
“Always wanna keep the back of your neck exposed to open air, Nerd Guy,” he’d said to Finn once on a long run around New Hope’s outer wall.
“Uh…” Finn had replied, too out of breath just then to manage more.
“I’ll tell you why: that’s where you keep your lizard brain.”
Finn hadn’t asked why, electing instead to simply take the advice rather than waste breath arguing on the long, torturous training run. “Like… *huff* my… *huff* instincts?” Finn had asked, pretty sure the neck wasn't where you kept any kind of brain.
“Yeah. When your little hairs stand up and you feel that chill like you’re being watched, that’s your lizard brain telling you something your city-raised, mushy gray matter tells you to ignore. Keep your lizard brain as close to open air as possible. It’s what I do.”
Finn wanted to say that they both grew up in New Hope and there were dangers aplenty within the walls, but he kept his mouth shut. Carl was high strung, and at that point in their relationship, Finn didn’t know exactly where he stood with the man. Could a careless comment get him stabbed in his sleep? He didn’t know. Carl’s constant, knife-edge awareness was off-putting, but when you learned about the guy’s Gift, his quirks kind of fit into place.
Carl had the Gift of perfect perception within a certain distance of his body, meaning every buzzing insect, every tiny shift in his clothing, every twitch of his horse, Carl had an instant awareness of it. His sensitivity even went so far as molecules in the air blown about by air currents only the scout could feel. During their first patrol together, on a sticky summer night in the swamps, Finn watched Carl from across the fire, twitching and flailing like a crazy person for five minutes straight only later to realize he’d been intercepting mosquitoes before they could touch his skin.
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“Don’t know why, Nerd Guy, but after a little while skeetos just leave you alone if you kill enough of em without lettin’ em score. It doesn't make any sense, but it works. I ain’t been bit in months.” After that, Finn just assumed the things Carl did had purpose, even if those things didn’t comport with normal human social expectations.
Carl’s mount, a hyperactive black philly, seemed to share his “one snapped twig away from maximum violence” disposition. The horse was constantly turning her head and flicking her ears to address potential threats. Just then, Carl’s head jerked to his right, fixating on something in the brush, and his horse, sensing his intention, turned and barreled right into the thick of it. There was no call to arms or alarm sounded. It was just Carl being Carl, and no one would be surprised if he trotted back onto the road carrying a rabbit, a deer, or a snake that would make its way into the cooking pot this evening.
Saul, the platoon’s resident medic and candidate for sainthood, rode up and down the column keeping a keen eye on his fellow Rangers as much as the nine o’clock woods. His signature green cloak was drawn down over his face as usual, but Finn knew he wore that little easy going smile of his that you could only get hints of if you squint really hard into his hood. He rode his black and white dappled gelding with a clumsy looking bounce for every clop of the hooves, but Saul could stay in the saddle if he really needed to. It was more that the medic would split his attention in so many different directions that he didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it all. He sacrificed comfort in the saddle to make room for a more perfect picture of his current scenario. The horse didn’t seem to mind, happily trotting up and down the line, sometimes stopping to munch a clump of grass when Saul’s attention was elsewhere. That horse sure loved to eat.
Behind Finn and his trailer was a hulking, bearded, blonde man striding easily with a pack twice as big as Finn’s and a bulky, big bore rifle, colloquially known as the Slugger, hung over one shoulder. Despite Carl’s insistence on keeping one’s neck out there, Everett, the Rangers’ artillery man walked the Earth fully armored with a combat helmet, ballistic plate carrier, kevlar neck and groin guards and a full complement of big slug rounds in a bandolier across his chest. On his back was a sledgehammer that looked comically small next to his large frame. That is until a normal person tried to swing it. Then it was all strained muscles,heavy breathing, and wounded pride. All of this, the big guy wore with unyielding stoicism Finn aspired to affect someday, maybe when he’d earned his Star for something particularly manly and cool.
Beside big Everett was a heavily muscled stallion that pulled its trailer, identical to Finn’s but looking much smaller next to the pair of giants. The horse pulled its burden with the same ease his rider carried the artilleryman combat load, seemingly just out for a stroll. Together they formed the strongpoint of the column. The unmovable. Or at least the last of them to move. Everett hummed softly to the stallion as they walked together, comfortable in their strength and the vital roles they played.
Saul pulled up to Finn’s side, calling down from the saddle. “Hey, you want me to take care of that for you?” He asked, holding his hand out, honing in on Finn’s bleeding back. The medic’s Gift slithered and crawled between his fingers like eels made of pitch, seemingly eager to dive into someone and do their magic. Saul kept his hand hovering, though, careful not to touch anyone without their expressed permission.
Finn shook his head and shifted his pack with a little bounce. He tried not to wince when the weight landed again on his shoulders and back, but he probably failed judging by the sympathetic hiss that came out of Saul’s hood. “Nah, I’m good, Saul. Save it. I’ll sort myself out when we stop.”
“You sure?” His voice was an easy baritone that reassured you, even when your bones were sticking out of your body in most unnatural ways. “You’re favoring your left side, and I can hear the extra water sloshing around in there.”
“Oh yeah. Won’t be long now before we stop anyway.”
“Oh, you haven’t heard then?”
Finn groaned, closing his eyes and tilting his head up to the sky. “Heard what?”
“Cap says we’re not stopping today. We’re eating in the saddle” he replied with a glance down to his saddle, as if to apologize that he wasn’t the one walking today “So to speak.”
Cap, the salt and pepper old world combat veteran turned cowboy turned Ranger captain, rode 20 feet in front of Finn and Saul. His old jeans and well worn leathers looked out of place next to the AR15 slung across his back; a bygone generation’s weapon hung over an even older bygoner style of dress. Finn figured the old man could hear the conversation, but Cap just rode on in his deceptively lazy, wobbling way, completely in tune with his horse’s steps, able to ride to the end of the world and beyond without stopping.
“Terrific,” Finn sighed. Apparently it was that time again. Time to embrace the suck.
“I’m just saying, if I can smell the blood, there are things out there that probably can too.”
Pretending not to be a little disturbed at the man’s outright admission that he could smell blood, Finn looked up at the sky and gauged the time. “No need to use your own juice, my man. Just stick with me for a while and watch my sector.” ‘My sector’ meaning: ‘my horse and the trailer,’ but his little bubble of responsibility sounded better as just “my sector.” Today was Finn’s day on the ground while the others pulled security. All Finn had to worry about were his feet and Eggo’s hooves.
“You sure? It’s, uh, kinda my thing,” Saul said.
Finn swallowed, doing his best to keep his eyes on Saul’s hood instead of on his outstretched hand and the undulating black snakes. “I’m sure. Just watch out for me.”
He retreated into himself, eyes closed, breathing in and out, emptying his mind to attune to the beating of his heart. He kept a rhythm, one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other…
“It’s not me then?” Saul’s voice broke in.
Finn cracked an eye open. “What?”
“You know.” Saul held up his palm and let the black tendrils extend further. They danced and writhed like mating snakes, if snakes had tentacles that then had their own tentacles set on a career in exotic dance. Then he retracted them back into his palm, with a clenched fist as if to trap them inside.
Finn tried to give the man a soft, reassuring smile, staring into the hood of the cloak where he imagined the medic’s eyes were. “No that- it’s not that.” he lied only partially. Finn could heal himself given some time. Saul’s magic was… disturbing on an instinctual level for most people, and it took some time to get used to. Everyone, to a man, had their reservations about it being used on them except when absolutely necessary, but, in Finn’s case, he really could heal himself with his Gift. Hell, it was one of the few upsides to having a meditation Gift instead of tossing around fireballs or shaping iron with his fingers. “Watch over me and I’ll clear it up. My dad thinks with some practice my Gift could develop into something else. Might as well put in the work.”
The hood bobbed slightly up and down. “‘That why you like to take a triple load when you’re a walker?”
“It’s just a double load, thank you very much, and it’s training,” Finn said, trying not to sound too defensive.
“It’s pretty much a triple, Finn. You replaced a third of it with water. It’s heavier.”
“Oh so you watch me pack, do you?” Finn asked, getting the sense this wasn’t going to be let go unless they hash this out. “If we take contact, I’ll drop it first thing, okay? Even so, I can handle it, and I heal up afterward, better than ever.”
Saul’s hood just stared at Finn enigmatically for a long moment, then it dipped again in what Finn assumed was a nod. “That makes some sense. Exercise is prolonged trauma for your muscles, and your gift heals it according to what it needs.”
Finn rolled his head around his shoulders to relax his neck. “That’s the theory, and I’m pretty close to calling that a fact.”
“I’ll watch your back then, not that I wasn’t before."
Finn laughed. “Well, just make sure I don’t wander off or something. This won’t be the most restful meditation I’ve had, but I can keep walking and do a half-assed job of it. Enough to close a blister at least.”
“Well, now I want to see what a sleepwalking Finn gets up to.”
“It’s not sleepwalking.”
“Might as well be.”
“Okay it’s kind of sleepwalking. Whatever. Just give me a few.”
With that Finn took a deep breath and retreated into emptiness all the while keeping his legs moving onward toward home.