Separation

“It is nothing more than a manifestation of concussion,” Doc said quietly. “There is nothing we can do, no matter how frustrating it may be, other than sit and wait.”

“Yeah, but how much time do we have?” Ryan countered.

Doc fixed him with a stare. “How much time does she need?”

“I don’t know,” Krysty said, “but I figure now is the time to risk something she once told me about—she’s been out too long.”

“What?” J.B. asked worriedly.

“Adrenaline. Just a little shot. It may just jolt her out of this.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Krysty shrugged. “We sit back and wait. Just the one shot, no more. That’s what she said.” Krysty opened Mildred’s shirt and pulled out one arm, the muscle still taut despite her state. The veins in the crook of her elbow stood out like a relief map.

Krysty wet her lips, dry with nerves. “Dean, look through Mildred’s pockets and try to find a shot of adrenaline. She must have some, otherwise she wouldn’t have told me about it or how to inject it. And let’s hope it wasn’t in her satchel.”

THE WARRIORS WERE SWIFT, silent and sure. This was their land and they knew every last inch of it. They picked their way across the foliage and roots in pitch black, using the darkness of their skins as extra camouflage. Their clothes were blacks, browns and muted shades of green, perfect camou for the woods in both light and dark. They carried their blasters across their backs and holstered, sure of themselves not to need them in hand at this time. The blasters were a motley collection of Glocks, Heckler & Kochs, and Colt handblasters that had been looted and garnered over the year before skydark by their ancestors, who had bargained and bartered for a stockpile of ammo that was still extant.

They didn’t often encounter outsiders on the island. It was a difficult place to get to or to get away from. So their community had been insular, aware of the outside and yet protected from it. Their ancestors had soon become wise to the problems of inbreeding, so the community was kept small, the breeding between them strictly monitored to keep any such problems to a minimum. It could be done if a people had discipline, and a cause.

They had such.

Yet despite the lack of outsiders to test them, they were a disciplined and slick community. Much of their meat was farmed, but some came from the wildlife on the island. And that wildlife was as likely to be predator as prey. The outsiders had been lucky to arrive on that stretch of beach at that time of day.

Perhaps not so lucky.

The warriors usually hunted with knives or bow and arrow. Rarely did they use the precious ammo, except in their practice, kept to a carefully worked minimum. They were sharp with both forms of chilling.

So when word had reached the ville that there were strangers landed on the south shore, the warriors had soon been ready and had tracked the strangers, keeping their distance.

The outsiders hadn’t spotted them, although the albino had seemed aware of something out of the ordinary. The others seemed to pose little threat. Two of them seemed hurt, two were either young or female and two were unconscious. One of these had since come around, but the other was a sister, and was still out.

Why did they have her? What could they want with her?

The strangers had moved away from the fire they had built and were clustering around her. The woman was leaning over the sister, tearing at her clothing. She had already handled her in a way that was undignified, and they talked of her in coarse terms—their whole language and mode of speech coarse.

Barbarians. They could only mean the sister harm.

They ripped her clothing, and now one of them—the young one with curly hair, not the older curly haired, one-eyed stranger—was rummaging through a jacket, looking for something. He produced a package, which he unwrapped to reveal a needle.

They were going to use it on the sister.

The warriors exchanged hand signals, their eyes attuned to the darkness by long nights on patrol. They moved around to circle the clearing, their progress swift and silent. At a signal from their leader, repeated rapidly from man to man, they moved forward, blasters ready.

“WAIT!” JAK BARKED, suddenly turning as Krysty was about to plunge the needle into Mildred.

“What?” she snapped, feeling her hair tighten as danger suddenly signaled itself near.

“Men closing,” Jak returned, palming another knife so that he had one in each hand. “All around.”

“Fireblast,” Ryan cursed as he moved stiffly. His reactions were slowed, but then, so were the reactions of the others.

Before any of them had a chance to adopt a fighting stance, they were surrounded by warriors who emerged stealthily from cover. They were holding blasters. One of them stepped forward. More than six feet, broad and muscular, and with an air of authority, he was obviously the leader. When he spoke, it was in a rich, dark voice of deep timbre that carried that authority like a prize in front of him.

“Though the night is dark it seems that your purpose is like the day. You will leave the sister alone and move away from her. Any of a wish to linger too long will be like the pig who lingers too long near the butcher’s knife, and so does not live a life for long. Be aware and learn, my friends.”

Chapter Four

“No choice, I guess…We’ll have to let them take us,” Ryan said with weary resignation, dropping his panga.

The other companions acknowledged that, moving away from Mildred slowly. J.B. dropped his Tekna, but Jak was able to palm his knives into the hidden recesses of his camou jacket, so that he kept himself well-armed. He did, however, lose a knife as the one given to Krysty was taken from her by the opposing force as they moved in, as was Dean’s bowie. The warrior who took Krysty’s knife also dashed the syringe from her hand, stamping on it so that the adrenaline leaked uselessly into the earth.

“That was a really stupe thing to do,” Krysty said with deceptive calm, straining to keep her temper. “I only wanted to help Mildred.”

“So the sister’s name is Mildred…unusual,” the warrior leader said with a raised eyebrow. “As to your other point, truly it is as the winds that blow the clouds before the storm. They seek to deceive and it is only the harsh experience of time that teaches otherwise.”

“Please yourself, but wrapping it up in fancy talk isn’t going to change the fact that she’s been unconscious for some time and she needs help,” Krysty hissed vehemently.

“Indeed, and you were seeking to aid her purely from the milk of kindness that runs like that of the dark fruits during the summers. It is unknown for those of your kind to help a brother or a sister. The reverse, if the texts of history are to be believed. Your purpose is swathed in mystery like the darkness that enfolds us now. But that is of no matter.” He gestured with the H&K that he held across his chest, barrel down but with flexing biceps revealing a readiness to raise and fire. He continued. “Now we go. You will carry the sister between you. That will keep your hands occupied and accord her the respect she deserves.”

Looking around at the warriors, all of whom had blasters poised, and taking stock of their lack of weapons and the depleted physical condition in which at least half the group found themselves in, Ryan saw no reason to revise his original opinion.

“Let’s do it,” he said simply. “We’re in no state to take them on, and at least Mildred might get some kind of medical attention.”

“But—” Krysty began before casting her eye at the surrounding group of dark-skinned warriors. “Yeah, mebbe you’re right. We can sort this out later,” she said finally.

Under the direction of the warrior leader, the companions made a makeshift stretcher from their outer clothing and Mildred’s discarded jacket. It served a dual purpose: not only did they have something on which to carry the still-unconscious woman, but the lack of covering in the chill night left them shivering and cold to the bone. Now they were in even less of a condition to offer resistance.

The warrior leader nodded his approval at their efforts, eyeing Jak in a curious manner. As the companions moved Mildred onto the stretcher, he reached out to stop the albino.

“Wait, my friend. Tell me, why do you allow yourself to be a part of these people—you have difference and should not allow them to rule you.”

Jak flashed him a red-eyed glare that bespoke of a wish to do far more than just reply verbally, whilst being all the while aware that he could not endanger his comrades by so doing.

“No one rules me—they’re friends.” He spit. “All of them,” he added significantly.

The warrior leader shrugged. “Truly, we live in interesting times when such things can occur. The lamb and the lion lay down together, it can only result in bloodshed like the seas that surround us. A perplexing problem, one I gladly leave to others. My only concern is to see that the sister Mildred is attended to without further delay. Now move,” he added, gesturing with the H&K.

Jak returned to his comrades and they lifted Mildred. With an indication from the leader, they followed part of the warrior pack into the darkness of the woods, keeping close to see where their captors led them. The remainder of the pack followed. The companions knew that any attempt to break into the cover of the woods would be futile. Their blasters—useless though they were at that moment—were in the custody of the opposition. Any attempt to use the darkened woods as cover would mean leaving Mildred behind. Added to this, half of their group was in no state to make a break and the warriors knew the woodlands inside out where the companions would be moving blind. The familiarity of the warriors with the terrain was born out by the fact that the group in front of them moved through the densely packed terrain with a surefootedness that made it hard for the companions, made clumsy by the unconscious Mildred strung between them, to even follow, let alone think about escape. Besides which, they knew that the warriors had their blasters ready to punish any deviation from the route set by those in front.

The trek through the woods seemed to take forever. There was no light by which to see the path or to take landmarks by which to judge the passing of time and distance. There was only the painful stumble through the pitch-black to a destination that was, as yet, unknown to them. For Ryan and J.B. the trip was made less painful thanks to the narcotic effects of the painkillers they had taken earlier, yet still the long journey would be marked by a gradual return of the pain that cursed them earlier. And for Doc, the disorientation of such a journey in the darkness wasn’t helping him to retain the delicate hold on reality that he had attained since recovering consciousness.

In truth, it was only Dean, Jak and Krysty who were able to try to assess what was occurring around them and to try to work out where they were being taken. They had neither pain nor disorientation to fog their ability to analyze the situation. This much was clear—they had to be traveling into the island, as they had walked a greater distance from the clearing than that which they had traversed from the shore to reach their campsite. And, despite the amount of time it seemed to take, they hadn’t covered that great a distance. From their estimates earlier in the day, they knew that the island was no more than a few square miles in total. So it seemed that they weren’t traveling straight, which course may have been dictated by the growth of the woodland.

It had also been an uneventful march, which suggested that the wildlife to which the warrior leader had alluded was either in another part of the island or knew well enough by instinct to avoid the group of warriors as it made its way through the terrain.

“Is that light ahead, or is it dawn?” Krysty asked softly as a glow of illumination appeared ahead of them.