Chapter 9

I planted my feet, tucked my head to my chest, and buckled forward. I pressed my elbows together and shoved back as hard as I could. The powerful, sudden stance and speed of the Hellions crashed together in one explosive moment. My elbows jabbed into the monster’s stomachs, bending them in half. I didn’t know if Hellions needed to breathe, but the impact stopped them nonetheless. Hitting their hardened bellies sent ripples of shock through my arms, stinging the bullet wound in my back and chest. Fighting against the pain and ignoring the fear, I whirled around and snapped a kick across the farthest one’s helmet. I twisted again and drove my fist into the throat of the left Hellion.

“What are you doing?” I heard Sawyer shout. 

I didn’t turn to look at him. This was his one chance to get away. I could die knowing that both he and Sonya would make it just a little bit farther than I did. That wasn’t a lot to salvage from this disaster, but I would take what I could get.

The Hellions shook off the hits with ease. They shrieked and hissed. I could almost see their crimson eyes beyond the black glass of the mask. I could almost feel their hunger and rage as their muscles coiled and prepared to spring.

“GO!” I roared. 

The command was barely past my lips before the Hellions leaped. 

Despite their swiftness, power, fury, and pointed needles on covering their mouths, I was glad I couldn’t see the true faces of the Hellions. Their ghoulish, sickly faces and razor fangs might have halted me. 

The Hellion on the left reached for me first. Its hands shot for my face. I grabbed its arms and turned to force it into the Hellion on the right. They bumped into each other, but the Hellion I’d thrown lashed out with a violent back-fist. Rough leather-clad knuckles crashed into the side of my head, shooting stars into my vision. I couldn’t see, but I kicked in the direction of the Hellions. My boot slammed into something solid and a Hellion screeched. I backed up and blinked my vision clear. Just in time to see the second Hellion charging me.

I waited until it closed distance, then slipped my foot back and twisted out of its range. The Hellion skidded to a stop, but wasn’t able to miss my punch.

The brass knuckles crunched into the plastic helmet and left a dent behind. One of the protective orbs had a crack. My next punch went to the same spot, putting another crack in the eye.

One more and the glass could break–

A heavy force slammed into me, crushing me into the ground. The collision sent a flood of pain through my back into my chest. It felt like all the skin around the bullet wound had exploded off of me. The only reason I didn’t scream was because the impact jolted the air out of my lungs.

The Hellion trapping me on the ground snapped its head down. My reflexes kicked in at the last second. My hand curled around the needle before it could stab into my throat. The Hellion jerked to a stop, in perfect range for my second fist. I pummelled its helmet, aiming for the eyes, punching as fast as I could to break the glass. Brass cracked against the smooth surface, spider-webbing it–

A solid punch hammered into my chest, right into the worst of the bullet wound. Agony like liquid fire ripped through my torso. This time, I couldn’t hold back my scream. 

The fingers didn’t leave. They dug into the wound, pinching damaged nerves, pulling on ruined muscle, stretching skin to rip it from the bone–

Another scream cut through the air. It ended as quickly as I heard it. It might have been mine. I didn’t know. All I knew was the torture in my chest, and my slipping hold on the needle of the Hellion tearing at me. 

Metal shrieked as the bloody needlepoint pushed against my brass knuckles, digging into the hollow of my throat. The tip scratched against my skin, like a cat beginning to claw at the mouse in its clutches.

The Hellion raised its head, pulling the needle from my hand but keeping me in agony with its fingers buried in my chest. My vision swam and spiralled. I raised my good hand, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stop the next, final blow. The Hellion plowed its head down, aiming for my throat–

A flash of silver swept down from behind the Hellion. Thick blood sprayed from the monster’s neck. The edge of a sword was buried deep in its throat. 

The Hellion twitched and jerked, wrenching its head to my right. It didn’t seem to notice or care that it cut its own throat. The blade was ripped free, the Hellion’s screams turning into horrid, choked gasps behind its mask. Another flash of silver, and the Hellion’s head toppled from its neck.

I groaned and clutched my chest. The wound was deep and ragged, almost double the size it was before. I sighed. It was time to admit I was beaten. I couldn’t take on the second Hellion in this state, no matter what words of encouragement I gave myself. 

Metal scraped against leather. I turned my head slightly, cracking open an eyelid. Sawyer crouched down by my head. He frowned at my injuries. I wondered if I was delirious. There was no way the marauder would have stayed if he weren’t a hallucination. Nobody in their right mind stayed to save a stranger from Hellions. The kind-hearted were among the first ones to die in The Storm. 

Still, this Sawyer shook his head. “I know I said trust me for fifteen minutes, but I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t do anything stupid two minutes later.”

I continued to blink– even that seemed to hurt– and found that Sawyer was still with me, looking concerned, of all things. 

“You need to get up,” he told me. 

I sighed. “I’d much rather sleep.” I started closing my eyes.

Sawyer’s sigh was much more impatient. 

“Fine.”

Gravel shifted, and soon there were hands hooking under my right arm and pulling me from the ground. I hissed and tried to jerk away. Given how much blood I’d lost and how much pain I was in, my struggles did little good. Then again, Sawyer seemed determined to hang onto me. I glared at him, and he glared right back.

“I just killed two Hellions for you,” Sawyer barked. “Did you forget that there was more than one skiff coming down? I’m not going to leave you here to die.”

I managed to slip my hand from his. I rolled onto my side, halfway to getting up. “Why?” was the only word I could manage.

Sawyer stared at me for a long time. I couldn’t read his face, but his jaw was set tight, like he was holding something back. 

Then his shoulders slumped, and the mask slipped.

“Because you’re the first person who’s ever saved my life.”

Right then, I spotted the pain. The soul crushing loneliness that he was forced to endure. Just because of his name. 

I had no idea why Sawyer really chose to save my life. If he was telling me the truth, or putting on an act that would lead me into a trap. At the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

Slowly, grudgingly, I pushed to my feet. The moment I lifted my head, everything around me tilted violently. I began falling, certain that this collapse would be my last. 

Sawyer darted under my toppling body and stopped the fall. He almost buckled under my weight, but somehow found a way to support me. 

“We need to get out of sight,” Sawyer said. “If those other Hellions do come looking for their friends, I don’t want to be around for the reunion.”

I nodded dully. I decided there was no point in speaking anymore. I was exhausted, almost out of blood, and had no idea where I was. Sawyer could have been taking me to a group of cannibals for a royal feast, and I would never know until I was roasting on the spit.

Hell of a way to start my new, free life. 

***

The shambling walk through Westraven was a blur. I remember moving through crumpled shops, past some sagging metal warehouses, over a road that seemed to be made entirely of broken glass, then into a dimly lit, grey brick apartment building. Sawyer half carried me up the stairs until we reached a floor that had been devastated in The Storm. The walls separating the bachelor rooms from one another were knocked out, creating a wide-open space that covered the whole floor. The interiors were picked clean of anything useful. Tables, mattresses, chairs, silverware, carpets, even sinks had been torn out and carried off somewhere else for treasure or resource. Only one thing remained– a collapsible metal ladder studded with large gears and cranks on the sides that peeked out from the edges of a dusty blue tarp.

Sawyer carefully set me against the remnants of the far left wall, treating me like I would shatter at the slightest brush of wind. I would have shrugged him off if I didn’t think the slightest, quickest movement would incapacitate me.

I rolled my head against the wall and watched Sawyer kneel on the floor to pull the tarp back. He gripped the ladder and laid it horizontally onto the ledge of the broken wall. Once it was settled into a position that satisfied him, he twisted the knobs and rotated the cranks. The ladder began to extend with grating clicks that sounded too loud for my ears. Sawyer continued to operate the ladder, stretching it one rung at a time until it clicked and thunked against something in the distance. I watched Sawyer push against the ladder. It remained sturdy, so he began to cross over it. I shuffled along the wall and squinted to get a better look at whatever was supporting the ladder. 

I blinked a couple times to make sure the overwhelming pain wasn’t making me see things. 

The buildings across from us had been torn down as though sheared. Decade old bombings had pummelled them into a slash of rubble that turned the sidewalks into the alley into a craggy hill that blocked further views of the city. I couldn’t even see the horizon. 

Lying on its port side against the hill of debris, was the most wretched and pathetic airship I’d ever seen. 

The ruined airship was a huge, two hundred foot barque with three thick masts resting against heaps of rubble. The sails had been stripped away, and the most of the paint was chipped to reveal the dented, punctured taupe iron beneath it. Two sets of rusty cannons lined the hull. The windows that remained on the captain’s cabin were smeared with white dust. Some of them were cracked, or missing all together. A huge piece of the hull was gone, as though some kind of beast sliced into the ship’s skin and tore a strip of it away. The gouge was so deep that I could see the blackened interior where some kind of shot had burst in and scorched everything inside. 

As awful as the ship looked, it was the lacklustre gold script that made my eyes widened. There was no mistaking that name, no matter how dull the cursive text had become. 

I was staring at the Dauntless Wanderer. The infamous marauder ship that had belonged to Robertson and Davin Kendric. Sawyer’s cold-hearted father and ruthless brother.

Sawyer, the only Kendric still alive, scurried over the ladder, which had been perched near the gaping hole in the hull. The ladder didn’t appear to be moving or swaying from his motions. He made it look perfectly safe.

But he wasn’t as big as me. He could move quicker. He wasn’t bleeding like a stuck pig. 

As if sensing my thoughts, Sawyer made it to the end of the Dauntless, stood on the iron hull of the ship, and waved his hand at me. We didn’t know where the other Hellions were, but with their superior hearing, shouting across the alley would definitely attract unwanted attention. 

I hesitated, glancing at the ladder and the distance to the Dauntless Wanderer. It didn’t seem that far. A couple dozen feet, maybe. When I peered over the edge of the shattered wall into the street below, I couldn’t see anything or anyone lurking around the corners waiting to pick me off. This was the safest I had felt since I began this ludicrous plan. 

So why was I hesitating? 

I glanced at Sawyer again. He was still waiting, but I couldn’t tell if the look on his face was one of impatience, or concern. For a second, I thought I saw the loneliness again. 

Whatever I saw suddenly cast the dark thoughts from my head. Sawyer’s family name no longer mattered, any more than my past in the Crater did. It was time to move on. 

Or in this case, move into what I hoped was safe cover.

I knelt down and crawled along the ladder. It groaned and dipped slightly under my weight, but didn’t break. My heart thundered in my chest as I dragged my body from rung to rung, listening to the squeaking metal and hoping that I would be supported the whole journey. The right half of my chest burned every time I moved. I was panting with effort, beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I kept telling myself that the end was in sight that I could rest once I was inside the battered ship. 

I finally made it across, flopping uselessly on the cool iron of the Dauntless’s exterior. Sawyer stumbled around beside me, grabbing the cranks identical to the ones that had been used in the apartment. He rotated the gears to drag the ladder into the ship. I was beyond exhausted, but I got to my knees and helped him. Sawyer didn’t stop me, though the hard set of his jaw and the concern in his eyes told me he didn’t think I was in a state to move, let alone help. 

After glancing around to make sure there weren’t any Hellions, raiding skiffs, or Stray Dogs converging below us, Sawyer and I hefted the shortened ladder and brought it back over to the gaping hole in the hull. We dropped it down, scraping it along the metal floor until it felt secure. 

My chest and left shoulder flared with pain every time I strained the damaged skin. I hoped I wouldn’t lose function in my arm, but there was no question that the wound would scar terrifically when I got it closed. If I ever got the chance.

I jerked back from the ladder and almost fell from the slanted floor. Or rather, the wall, since that was what I was standing on instead. I held out my hands to steady myself. After my balance was restored, I traced my eyes over the grim interior of the Dauntless Wanderer.

I think I was standing in the engine room. It was difficult to tell, as everything I laid my eyes on was melted or corroded away. The Dauntless must have been hit with some kind of explosive or possibly acidic cannon shot. The edges of the cannons were fractured from what must have been intense heat. Blackened boxes were tossed against the wall. Some were even cracked open, their contents either missing or scorched to an unusable degree. Cauterized wires dangled like tentacles along the tilted floor, their ends brushing against the wall. The wires seemed to be stretching toward a large metal cylinder a few feet away from where I was standing. I squinted, trying to see through the darkness to understand what the dented, punctured metal was.

“It’s the engine,” Sawyer answered grimly.

I turned my attention to him. He glanced longingly at the engine, then detached the ladder from its gears.

“Your engineer can’t fix it?” I asked. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

Sawyer put the ladder against the “wall” as best as he could, then faced me. The frustration in his eyes almost hid the pain I spotted. 

“Did you forget who I am? How easily I can be recognized by anyone with experience on a ship before The Storm? That most of the people who could help me are probably dead?” He sighed. “I’m alone, Nash. This is my family’s ship. I’m the captain, the first mate, the bo’sun, the rigger.” He scoffed. “I’m even the swabbie.”

The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Sawyer would have been a boy when The Storm shattered his world. Even if he watched the crew run the Dauntless Wanderer, even if he learned how the ship operated and what was required of every man on board, he had never been a captain. Now that the Dauntless was torn from the sky and the Wanderers were dead, Sawyer struggled to maintain the ship. To do every job by himself, because no one could stand to be near him. Not when the memories were so fresh. Not when it was assumed that the Kendrics and their Wanderer Clan were partly responsible for bringing the Hellions into Aon and to begin their massacre of Westraven. Eight years had passed since that those terrible days began, but people rarely forgot. These days, they almost never forgave, either.  

“Then why stay?” I whispered. Sawyer said nothing. I nodded to the broken engine. “It doesn’t look like that will ever be fixed. Even if it were, you can’t let it sail again. The Hellions would shoot it down in an instant, and this time there wouldn’t be any scraps left.”

Sawyer’s eyes flashed with anger. “I know. Just like I know I have to fight off scavengers and vandals at every turn. Nobody can resist taking a shot at the Dauntless.”

“So why are you still here? You’re a hell of a fighter, Sawyer. There must be a marauder Clan or a colony that could use you.”

He shook his head and turned away. His hand went to the wall like he needed to brace it. 

No. Not to brace it. To remember it. To know it’s real.

After a long, quiet moment, Sawyer said, “I’m not proud of my family’s history. Never have been, never will be. The only thing I hate more than remembering the things my father and brother did is everyone assuming that we were all like that.”

He must have sensed my quizzical look, because he glanced at me and sighed heavily. 

“I had another brother. A younger one. Micah. Thought he was invincible, that he would be the king of the skies one day. If he wasn’t getting into trouble, he was looking for it.” 

Sawyer smiled to himself, recalling a memory that seemed to both warm and pain him at the same time. 

“Father never spent much time with him, and Davin scared him, so he stayed close to me.” Sawyer stifled a laugh. “He was all but welded to my side. Followed me everywhere, saying I was a better pirate than Davin, boasting that he would be just like me.”

There were no smiles this time. No mask to cover up his heartache.

“After he died in The Storm, I wandered around the city. I tried to find a place to live, but no one wanted another mouth to feed. No one trusted me. Even if they didn’t realize who I was, they shunned me. I didn’t contribute as much as I wanted to. All I could think about was Micah and the promise I never got to fulfill for him.

“A few months later, I found the Dauntless. I don’t know how or why I didn’t walk away. Maybe I just missed the damn ship. I grew up on it. All I could think about was the wind in my hair, the smell of the sky, the sights you could see when you were in the clouds…” He gazed ahead, seeing something I couldn’t.

“There were some scavengers taking pieces of the Dauntless. Supplies. I don’t know if they were trying to survive or looking to sell the parts for loot. But I snapped. I attacked them. Barely let them live.”

Sawyer shoved a rough hand through his hair and gripped it tightly. “After that, I realized how much like my father and brother I was becoming. That I was dishonoring Micah’s memory. And I refused to do that.” He let go of his hair and glanced up at the charred roof of the Dauntless. “So I came back home. Decided that the least I could do was look after the ship.”  

He fell silent for a long time, then suddenly recalled everything he told me, a stranger who fought him, helped him escape, and nearly died for him. He frowned, like he didn’t know what to do with me now. Glad I wasn’t the only one who seemed to be having that problem.

“You’ll be safe here,” Sawyer said after a long minute. “The good stuff has already been looted from the Dauntless, but I’ve been recollecting it. I’ll come back and look after your wound. The bullet probably went through, but we have to clean it and stitch it up before it gets infected.”

I nodded, pressing my back to the ruined wall as he shuffled past me. Sawyer reached the door at the end of the hall, leaning awkwardly to the side to pull it open from its new angle.

“Sawyer.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me. I opened my mouth to speak, but words escaped me. What would I say? What could I say? Nothing I’d ever experienced was quite like his life. I wasn’t sure if I had it better or worse than he did. I’d lost my family too. A mother, a father, two siblings. I was taken and thrown into a life I didn’t want, one that nearly killed me. 

But I was still alive. Despite it all, I continued to survive.

“Thank you,” was all I could manage. 

Sawyer nodded, then turned and left the engine room. Gratitude seemed to be enough for him.