Khayu Sept squatted on the ridge with his older brother—recently having promoted to War Minister specifically for this mission—and the five other surviving Jackals, looking down at the small cluster of homes along the river’s edge. They had discovered the enemy town not far from the edge of the Divide, nestled along the same band of water that they had followed up the cliff face.
The climb up had been the most strenuous ordeal Khayu had ever suffered. Six thousand feet of constant wind, brutal sun, narrow ledges on which to catch a few minutes’ nap, failing morale, broken fingernails, exhausted bodies, comrade deaths, and dwindling supplies.
It had been the War Minister, Khayu’s older brother and ranking officer of the mission, that had kept them going when, more than once, Khayu and his companions had clung to the cliffs, looking down at the empty air for thousands of feet below them and considered flinging themselves into the Void to end their suffering.
“When we reach the heretics’ land,” Sabbaht had insisted, as they struggled to find the will to keep going, “we will have our fill of women, food, and mead. They’ll accept us as great ambassadors for the Pharaoh, and will serve us hand and foot as we speak in Her name.”
That had been in the beginning, during the first few days of the ascent. Weeks later, after seven of their number had slipped and fallen, their screams dissipating into the distance below, his tone had shifted to one of bitter desperation. “We will bathe in their blood, comrades,” he had said, when he’d caught Menes staring a bit too hard at the Abyss. Khayu had known it was a false promise at the time—he had overheard the Pharaoh tell the High Minister of War to ensure their interactions on this side of the Rim were peaceful—but the thought of killing in the name of Burkan had given Menes and the other Jackals the fire they’d needed to make it the rest of the way to the top.
Now it was time for Sabbaht to deliver on said promises. Khayu could see it in his eyes, knowing his brother was in a tough place. He had offered blood—and, once offered, a priest of Burkan had a responsibility to deliver. But Khayu had been standing guard alongside his brother in the shadows when the Pharaoh had delivered the High Minister their orders. He knew they were on an informational mission, so he wondered how Sabbaht would deal with losing face, now that they’d finally found the enemy. He decided his older sibling would probably forget he’d made the claim. After all, the Pharaoh herself had specifically said—
“We kill the men and children first,” Sabbaht said, looking over the rest of them. Khayu’s head jerked up with a frown, and Sabbaht met his brother’s eyes before the War Minister quickly looked away. “We take the women to honor Burkan. If they fight, we kill them too. Burkan desires sacrifice for our fallen. We will take it from the heretics’ bodies.”
Khayu, who was Sabbaht’s second for this mission, felt the twinge of anxiety in his gut knowing that the Minister would be going against the Pharaoh’s orders, but he held his tongue in front of the others. He waited until Sabbaht and Mahkatep had finished discussing the layout of the village and how and when to attack, then followed Sabbaht back to camp after the others had been given instructions to get a good night’s rest.
Catching Sabbaht on his way back from taking a piss, Khayu said, “What are you doing, Sabbaht?” He tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice, but he knew his older brother would notice.
His elder brother held his head stubbornly high. “What do you mean?”
“I was in the room when Pharaoh told the War Minister this was an information-gathering mission.”
“And we will gather information,” Sabbaht said, starting to brush past him.
Khayu held out a hand, stopping his brother short with an ebony arm. “Nobody will hold your words against you. They were said on that damned cliff. We were all going to die there if you hadn’t kept us going. There is honor in that. But if you go against the Pharaoh’s wishes, you will find yourself in a hell you cannot imagine…”
Sabbaht gave Khayu’s ebony arm a glance, then lifted his eyes back to Khayu’s face. There was a deep, sudden anger there. “Tell the Pharaoh to climb that cliff and come get me.”
Khayu froze, having trouble believing the words that had come from his brother’s lips. “Sabbaht…” he began, trailing off in horror.
“I’m not climbing back down that cliff,” Sabbaht said. “Much less taking the ropes back up the other side. I doubt any of us are willing to do that again. If you are, I commend you. But I’m not.” Sabbaht looked at the camp, a bitterness to his face. “I’ve been thinking on it, Khayu. We’re never going home. We might as well enjoy our time here however we can before our bodies return to the fires of Burkan.”
Khayu blinked, completely unable to believe what he was being told. “You would go against the Pharaoh’s wishes…?”
“This is where the attackers came from, the great ships that fell from the sky when we were children. The High Minister said if we ever got a chance to make them pay for daring to challenge the Pharaoh.”
“That was years ago,” Khayu blurted. “Before the Pharaoh gave us a specific command not to—”
Sabbaht held up his dark arm, stopping him. It was a lighter chocolate color than his own, the only visible sign of their different mothers. “The Pharaoh isn’t here. We won’t be going back, and she won’t be sending anyone else. She can’t stand to lose another eighteen Jackals each time she gets bored fucking her slaves and decides she’s curious about the other side of the Divide.”
Khayu blinked at the blatant heresy slipping from his brother’s lips. “She needs the information we gather here.”
“Why, brother?” Sabbaht demanded. “So she can laze in bed and write sonnets about it?” He scoffed. “There’s nothing over here that she will ever see. It’s too far, and the terrain too difficult. Not even our horses survived the descent. Do you really think the Pharaoh will walk?”
He didn’t, but that didn’t change the fact that Khayu thought they should stay within the mission parameters. “My loyalty is with the Pharaoh,” he said. “If she wants information about the other side of the Divide, it is not my place to question why.”
Sabbaht snorted. “That’s your prerogative. Personally, I survived something I had no right to survive and I plan to enjoy what little life I have left.” He glanced through the darkness at the dim light of the campfire, where the others were busying themselves preparing for war the next morning. “And judging by the way the others reacted this evening, they feel the same.”
“Yes, of course they did,” Khayu blurted, “killing is in our blood.” He gripped his brother’s shoulder. “But you’re their leader. It’s for you to set the example. You can still save this.”
“Save what?” Sabbaht demanded. “The Pharaoh will never hear about it. She’s on the other side of the Divide and hundreds of miles away, lazing in her palace, dulling her mind with drink and entertainment. We’re lucky we survived. If she sends another group to explore, they’ll feel the same.” His face hardened. “Now get out of my way. You’re my brother, but I can still take your hand for questioning me.”
Khayu dropped his arm in shock, then stared after Sabbaht as he brushed past him to return to camp.
This was not our mission, Khayu thought, his very being fighting against the thought of disobeying a direct order from the Pharaoh. Even knowing that she was so far away, that there was literally no chance she would ever see them again if they didn’t return home on their own, it went against every fiber of his being to defy her.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Thus, when the others prepared to raid the enemy camp the next morning, Khayu stayed on his log, wiping dust from his staff. Several of his companions had lost theirs in the climb, the weapons having slid from their holsters on their backs, swallowed by the Abyss. A couple had even tossed the long, unwieldy weapons over the edge rather than continuously fight the bulky, ungainly obstructions for a good handhold on the cliff. Khayu was one of only three who had kept his, and he planned to have it until the day he died.
Which, judging by the look his brother gave him when he told the rest he was staying, would probably be soon.
“I follow the orders of the Pharaoh,” Khayu said, standing up and raising his chin to stare down his younger brother as the other five Jackals watched. “And it was her command not to murder any of the heathens we came across.”
His brethren cast uncomfortable glances at each other, then at his older brother, who was standing tensely, jaw clenched. “You can guard the camp like a woman,” Sabbaht said. “But don’t expect to share in the spoils.” At that, he nodded at the other five Jackals and turned to lead them into the forest, towards their target. Khayu saw some hesitation in their faces, a quick, anxious glance or two as they once again looked at him, clearly staying behind, then they hurried to join his brother.
“You damn idiot,” Khayu muttered, watching his brother go. They were finally here, capable of actually completing the mission they were given, and Sabbaht had given up all pretenses of following orders and was fucking it like a dead horse. He sighed and glanced at the sky for patience, praying to Burkan for guidance. Of the two of them, his brother had not necessarily received the lion’s share of the brains, but he’d always been more impressive to his commanders for his gifts of the divine, of which he was second to none.
He would, Khayu decided, finish the mission he was given. The Pharaoh wanted numbers. Estimates on population, density, miles… Intel that was not going to get back to her if his comrades spent the rest of their days reveling in the blood of heretics.
Which meant he had to continue on alone.
As his longtime friends and his only brother departed into the forest, Khayu picked up his pack and his weapon and slipped into the forest, headed the opposite direction.
#
Travis lowered his binoculars from the opposite Rim and stepped away from the edge of the world at the sound of his comm sergeant jogging up. “Yeah?” he asked, capping his binoculars. It was an ancient, well-worn set, a pair his father had used countless times to take Travis to the Rim and gaze beyond, fantasizing in open awe about what could lie on the other side of the endless cliffs…
…The same man that had disappeared thirty-three years ago, after taking the Engineer’s best ships and crossing the Pit to look for other survivors to help rebuild civilization. Up until now, the Alliance had thought the mission to have simply been lost, the ships meeting some rare and unexplained solar phenomenon that had fried the electrical components and left them stranded. That had been the Engineer’s confused and crestfallen explanation.
But, just as Travis had suspected for the last three decades, it hadn’t been some accidental solar phenomenon. It had been an act of war. And, after thirty-three years of wondering, now he had proof.
Travis’s eyes fell upon the bound captive kneeling beside the ship’s landing leg. The man still bore the ragged remnants of green feathers in some savage headdress that had all but shredded in the battle where he’d fought and killed seventeen soldiers with the ease of a tiger mowing through mice.
“It’s been confirmed he’s the last survivor, Commandant,” Staff Sergeant Bellingham said, casting a sideways look at the impassive savage warrior. The man had not even looked in their direction since he’d been caught in an explosion and thrown to the ground unconscious long enough to be captured.
“The rest are dead? You’re sure?” Travis was disappointed by that. He needed answers, and this one had already refused all attempts to get him to talk.
“The Engineer managed to get some surveillance imagery from the last town they sacked. Six men. Five dead…and him.”
Six men. Travis felt his breath leave him. They had destroyed two entire villages. Over eight hundred people. They were still pulling bodies out of the wreckage. The six feather-clad warriors had simply rushed forward and slaughtered everything that moved, knocking the buildings down with their hands. Almost as if their very skin could trigger small explosions…
“Um…sir…the Captain wants to know what you want done with that one.” He gave the lone warrior a nervous look.
“You get the linguist here yet?” Travis demanded.
“The Scholar is en route. She’s been studying the clips we got of them talking to each other on the way here, says she thinks it’s an ancient form of Canadian, maybe Ancient Montanan.”
“Not the same language as the Engineer?” Travis demanded.
“She’s sure on that,” Staff Sergeant Bellingham said quickly. “Solar systems and fifteen hundred years difference, she said.”
Whatever that meant. As popular as she was to the people, the Scholar—the brilliant teenager who had cracked the Engineer’s frantic, babbling code when he popped into existence in a congressional board meeting just over thirty-five years ago—rarely tried to parse her discoveries down to layperson speech over the decades that followed. She continued to insist that the Engineer came from another planet, while also insisting his ancestors came from this planet, only fifteen hundred years in the future, after they ventured out in some unclaimed territory in space.
It was too much for Travis to wrap his head around. The bottom line was that Crash Evans had got the strange, techno-savvy Engineer to work with them, and the Engineer had gotten the ships everyone had written off as defunct back online. That’s all Travis needed to know about extra dimensions, converging timelines, malfunctioning jump tech, and intergalactic anomalies. He needed tools that worked, and the Engineer provided those tools.
Now he needed the Scholar to produce another miracle.
“She got any other ideas where these guys are coming from?” he asked.
“Other side of the Rim was all she would say, sir,” Bellingham said.
“Damn,” Travis said. “Tell her to get him talking. I wanna know what he knows. Did a ship drop him off or did he climb?” He glanced over the edge of the endless cliffs of the East Rim again, getting the sickening feeling that these super-humans had actually climbed this thing.
“I’ll tell her,” the Staff Sergeant said. “Anything else you want out of him?”
Ask about my dad, Travis thought, on reflex. He fought the impulse and said, “Ask who sent him, what the purpose was, why he attacked our people, what their exact orders were. I wanna know how many people where he comes from are like him. What his population centers are like. What kind of tech they have.”
Staff Sergeant Bellingham nodded, then, giving the glassy-haired man another nervous look, turned and departed at a jog.
Travis left the windswept edge of the Rim and came over to squat in front of their prisoner. The dark-skinned man continued to stare ahead as if Travis weren’t even there. He was wearing a suppressor collar now, something they’d had in storage in droves, leftover from the last great war. No one in his lifetime had ever thought they’d need to use them again.
“So here’s my deal for you,” Travis said, squatting in front of the man. “I don’t know what kind of monster kills women and children, but right now, your long-term outlook ain’t too good unless you cooperate.”
The man knew he was talking, but remained absolutely silent, his eyes fixed forward, arms chained behind his back. Even with the suppressor, he’d already broken the handcuffs once, so they’d resorted to heavy-duty tow chains and door padlocks to keep him subdued.
Travis dug into his pocket. “You see these?” He pulled the keys to the padlocks out and dangled them in front of the man’s face. That got a flicker of his attention, his brown eyes glancing at the keys, but only for a moment.
Travis got up, keys still in his hands. “I’m going to have a woman—really smart lady—come talk to you, and these…” he said, walking over to the Rim, “aren’t going to help you out of this.” He held the keys over the cliff and, making sure the man was paying attention, released them into the emptiness, where they were swallowed by the wind. “So I’ll just cut to the chase. She’s gonna come talk to you. Brilliant gal. A national hero. A tiny bit batshit, but I guess you can’t be a savant without being a little nuts.”
The man’s face lifted from where the key had disappeared and Travis saw a slight scowl before it was masked and hidden once more, the man returning his attention straight ahead.
“So I guess what I’m saying is you make any sudden movements around this chick and we’re gonna cut off body parts, okay?” Travis crouched in front of him again. “She’s probably gonna do some weird stuff, but you so much as fart funny,” he said, though he knew the stranger couldn’t understand him. “And I’m having your colon removed for safe measure.”
The man continued to stare straight ahead.
“So yeah. Miss Evans is gonna ask you some questions, and you better answer them,” Travis went on. “Especially the ones about what happened to the exploratory expedition thirty-three years ago. You wanna live, you answer those questions.” He hesitated, watching the man’s brown eyes. Casually, he said, “And if I find out some savages in the fucking jungle shot them down and ate their hearts, I’m gonna massacre every single one of you motherfuckers and glass your entire continent for good measure.”
There was more anger in his voice than Travis had intended, and it made the warrior’s eyes flicker towards him again.
Realizing he wasn’t going to get anything else, Travis got to his feet and said, “Get him ready for Crash.” Then, without another word, he turned and departed, leaving the man under watch by his two nervous guards.