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MILA
The crunch of wet ice beneath the soles of our boots has a hypnotic effect, as one foot follows the other in a never-ending cycle. Head down, chin tucked, bodies hunched, we assume the position with which frozen beggars always seem so comfortable. The minutes drag on as we slog along the Vapid path in silence, our gazes flicking up from the icy road every so often to make sure we aren’t being hunted.
I clear my throat and lift my chin from the warmth of the furry collar of my leather jacket. The words won’t come. The cold wind burns. Just ask her, Mila. “Do you still have that voice? The one you used to talk to as a child?”
Husniya looks up.
“You know? You and Demitri had that in common. It was—”
“I know what you’re talking about. No, I don’t talk to her anymore.” She adjusts the Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle hanging on her shoulder and lowers her gaze again.
“But, I saw you—”
“I said, I don’t have a problem,” Husniya snaps. “I grew out of that.”
She’s lying.
“Tell me about that place,” she says, deflecting.
In the distance, the high walls of the Vel enclave rise out of the ground like an alien fortress, dark and foreboding. Above the walls, a single column shoots straight up, penetrating the clouds and darkening the sky above. It supports one of the last remaining lillipads.
“That’s Vel. It’s always looked like that. Nobody knows what’s inside.”
“Nobody? Do the Velians come out at all?”
“Some do, but they’re sworn to secrecy. Most of them became information brokers. They’d rather die than reveal their secrets. It became their primary source of income.”
“Is that true? Do you know a Velian?” Husniya eyes me suspiciously.
“Yeah, actually, I do—or did.” Gil. Whatever happened to you?
“There’s a lillipad still standing in there. You think there’s Graciles up there?”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “Who knows?”
“How come Kapka didn’t blow that one up? He brought down the ones not erected over Musul enclaves.”
“The Velians fortified the enclave a long time ago. I imagine when everything went to hell, they locked the door and never opened it again.” Only Yeos knows how they’re surviving without trade.
“What do you think they’re hiding in there? To bother fortifying it in the first place, I mean,” Husniya says as we round the northern end of the dark enclave on our journey toward Logos.
“That’s what everyone wants to know.” I shove my hands deeper into the pockets of my jacket and watch hot breath lift away from my lips.
***
A good hour into our trek and we haven’t uttered another word. As she grows older, the gap between us seems to widen. It’s difficult to tell if it’s due to her Musul heritage conflicting with my ways as a Logosian, or just the fact I have no idea how to handle a hormonal teenage girl.
A lone gunshot echoes across the Vapid. Husniya and I freeze, surveying the horizon. She looks at me with wide eyes.
“Let’s go.” I take off at a jog down the road.
“Wait,” Husniya says, running to catch up. “We’re running toward the sound of the gunfire.”
“Yeah, Hus.” My words come between drawn breaths. “That’s what we do.”
After reaching a bend in the road, we leave the path and ascend a short hill. Nearing the top, I move to my belly and crawl the rest of the way to the summit. It takes a moment for Husniya to reach my side.
Below, a group of pilgrims with their cart of belongings are lined up on the side of the road. They’re on their knees, trying to control the sobs of the children. At the end of the row, one of them—a thin man with russet hair and plain clothes—lies face-down in the ditch, blood streaming from his head.
Surrounding the pilgrims, a group of Baqirans chant. Their faces are covered, and they’re armed with long blades and a few assorted firearms. Kapka’s radicals.
“Oh, merciful Yeos.” I say, shrugging out of my extra gear and leaving it in the snow. For a moment I freeze, a breath captured in my chest. Is he there? My eyes desperately search the faces of the kneeling pilgrims, then those of the men forced into Kapka’s service. No, Faruq is not among them. I’m not sure whether to feel injured or relieved.
“What are you doing?” Husniya asks.
I shake my head. “How many shots do you have for your rifle?”
“I, uh ...” The girl licks her lips.
“How many shots?”
She feels her pocket. “Four, I think.”
“Have them ready and get a good stable position like I showed you.”
“What are you going to do?” There’s dread in her voice.
Already sliding down the hill toward the road, I whisper back, “Just be ready.”
Upon reaching the road, I crouch and crawl between the low hills. Concealment is my ally here. As I move as swiftly as possible between the low barren scrub, the chanting grows louder. At the edge of the hill, I pause, raising myself up enough to get an eyeful. Fifteen meters of open ground stands between us. Gotta close the distance. Crawling low off the left side of the road, I can only hope they’re not paying attention.
The men point to a sobbing woman who kneels next to the dead man.
“What about you? Do you worship Ilah?” A Baqirian jabs a knife at her.
“Yes.” The woman shudders.
“Then you should be in the service of Kapka. What are you doing out here?”
She doesn’t answer.
“You will come with us.” They snatch the woman by the arm, dragging her to the side. The knifeman points to another woman holding a bundled child.
“What about you? Are you Baqirian or Alyan? Show us your brand.”
The woman proudly lifts her head, her bottom lip quivering. “I am Fiorian.”
The men converge on her, pull the baby from her arms and grab her by the hair. She screams and my blood turns to ice. Blood sprays from the woman’s neck as they cut her. The baby squalls. It too is silenced with a cruel stab of the knife. The victims are pitched like trash into the ditch on top of the man.
“Are you a follower of the Great Ilah?” one of the attackers says to the next pilgrim, aiming the bloodied knife at him.
The man shakes his head. “We’re just traders. Traveling together for safety. We’ve done nothing to you.”
The radical steps forward, blade poised.
My body coils like a spring and I shove off, a scream of fury upon my lips. The criminals turn, their eyes wide with surprise. One of their gunmen sees me, raising his weapon to fire as I zig and zag toward their position.
The crack of a rifle.
I instinctively flinch and grab my chest. But a plume of blood rises from his head and he drops his weapon against the crimson-painted ice at his feet.
Husniya.
A second gunman steps forward, charging the action of the Kalashnikov in his hands. He aims not at me, but at the wailing travelers.
“No,” I scream, my legs burning beneath a heart full of reckless abandon.
The weapon barks, stitching bloody holes across the backs of the travelers. They tumble forward into a jumbled pile in the ditch, still, like discarded dolls.
I collide with the first man, torque the knife from his grasp and bury the blade in his heart. The man with the Kalashnikov turns on me, the weapon burping fire. I dive, rolling at an angle as he tracks me. A bullet whistles past the gunman’s ear and he flops against the ground, scanning the hills for the sniper he can’t see.
Stay low, Husniya.
Another crack of her rifle. Another knife-wielding thug goes down off to my left. I rise and sprint toward the next gunman. He draws himself up to a knee, but I intercept the weapon at the muzzle. The hot steel sears through my glove and into my palm as I force the barrel up and drive it against the bridge of his nose with a wet smack. I twist the weapon from his grasp and clench the trigger. Fire blazes from the barrel. A stream of bullets thump against meat and bone until the weapon runs dry and silence reigns.
Ears ringing, I struggle to catch my breath. My lips peeled back in a snarl, I throw the empty weapon against the frozen turf with a curse.
“Sard it all. So much death—for what?” When did you become such an efficient killer, Mila? I turn my blood-splattered face toward the gray, snow-laden heavens above. Was this right? Will Yeos forgive me? A single guilty tear streaks down my cheek and off my chin.
Husniya approaches. I wipe my face.
“Mila!”
“I’m okay.”
The girl runs up, and the Moisin-Nagant clacks against the ground. “No, stop saying that, you don’t understand me,” she mumbles grabbing her face.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. Is she speaking to her voice?
Husniya continues to mumble, ignoring my question. “These men are Musuls. They look like my brother. I didn’t want to kill them, but I had to.” She cringes at one of the dead men, his head opened like a ripened melon.
“Husniya, they were murdering innocent travelers.” I take a deep breath. My hatred for their kind spills over to her. It shouldn’t. Talk to her, Mila. Find the words. “We killed them, the same as we would a pack of Rippers or a Kahangan war party. It doesn’t matter where they come from.”
“So, we have to kill people to try and stop them from killing people?”
“Sometimes.”
“But we didn’t stop it, Mila. We made it worse.”
I turn from the piles of bodies. “I don’t believe that. These travelers were slaughtered for their beliefs and we killed their murderers for acting like animals. Ignoring it wouldn’t have saved them. We did the best we could.”
“These Musuls ...” Husniya clutches her hands to her chest. “I don’t understand this. I can’t be like them. I refuse to be ...”
“Just like your brother, Faruq.” I wrestle the words and squeeze her shoulder. “And Mos and every other Musul who refuses to bend to Kapka and his thugs.”
Stepping toward the ditch, I pull off my burned glove and use the fresh snow to cool my blistered hand. Then, on the breeze, a faint whimper. It’s coming from the ditch. Scrambling over on all fours down the embankment covered in gore-drenched snow, I find a petrified child, wounded, but alive, half-buried by the lifeless corpses of her family. She’s in shock.
I don’t have to call for Husniya. She’s already pulling the child from the trough and applying a compress to the bullet wound in her shoulder.
“You stay with her,” I say, standing and doing my best to compose myself. “I’ll do a quick sweep of the dead and see if there’s anything of value to us.”
The child looks up at us, eyes wide, mouth opening and closing, but no words come.
“She’s going to live,” Husniya replies, looking up at me. “I can stop the bleeding. It’s not a vital hit.”
“Wrap it and get her ready to move," I say, standing and scanning the numerous corpses of friend and foe alike. “This will have attracted the attention of other scavengers, and we don’t want to be here when they arrive.”
