Encounter

“Please. Can’t we? Come on, just give me a little.”

“No.”

“But it’s been days!”

The private’s stomach grumbled, complaining in a fit.

“No.”

“I’m sick of eating nothing but barley paste and gruel. You can’t do this to me.”

“No.”

“Not even a shaving of bully beef?”

“No. These rations are for emergencies only. Now that we’re in town, we can subsist here.”

Their steps quickened, one after the other, as they slowly found out the true extent of the town. Days in the religious poorhouse, interacting with the others in quiet resignation as they sipped down reconstituted oatmeal. Sometimes they had splashes of milk added, some rarer times, the soldiers had fish from the stream. Most days were reliant on unleavened bread and rich rye. They found safety within the confines of the monasteries and abodes, but more often than not, lawbreakers and disobedients stalk the ways and slums, making a fool of the guards with ten-inch daggers. They left no evidence and had no mercy. But Dave and Watermann’s strength hadn’t left them—the stubborn bastards. When the rogues threw down the gauntlet, finding some way to corner them within an alley, their rifles with tipped blades scared them off. Yet their hunger remained, and Dave thought back to the days of watery soup with rat-nibbled carrots and potatoes. Meals fit for nobility.

So, they returned to the streets in search of help.

“Do you even remember what it’s like to be human, Lieutenant? How can you be so heartless?”

“Blame me all you want, you know I’m right.”

Watermann pouted.

“…not all the time,” he muttered.

Idle conversation sapped their energy. Or maybe it was the endless walking for days on end, picking up words, pointing at things and asking what they meant, hoping that the merchant would get the message and not hail the guards. “Hey look! These crazy guys are trying to mug my fruit stand!” they probably shouted as Dave and Watermann made their escape. It wasn’t always like that. Despite the cheap pulps of overseas savagery and hearts of darkness found within the veld populating the bookstores in the capital, they found many kind people. They remained enchanted, spiting their circumstances. A shell did not herald the chance lottery of death, and that was good enough.

But their search again brought them to the slums. Everything here, in the damp, musty creak of mud-brick homes and thatched roofs, ran both the underground and legitimate operations of many commoners. The two wandered in and out of alleyways, asking and interrogating every maiden and sire for the tiniest bit of intel. Slowly, the world opened up.

“Over here is the market.”

“Guard station… there.”

“Don’t go there. Dangerous.”

It was hard fought, and they still had little idea of how the language worked, but they eked out the details. They had to. There was no other choice.

“According to that missus, the guard station should be that way.”

“Right-O. Let’s get on with it.”

Another thin passage with little light. Dave’s little hairs pricked up, and Watermann’s ears twitched like a huntsman’s dog.

“Wah! Help me! Somebody!”

Somebody was crying out in the alleyway. Their footsteps came rushing and pattering against the stones. Boots of good make echoing throughout as worn-out clogs frantically kept pace. Before they could react, the girl with auburn hair and eyes crashed into Dave’s body.

“Sorry! Sorry! Please mister, you must help me!”

She looked up, and her aquamarine eyes watered.

“Please please please please please please please—!”

“Good God, girl, calm yourself!”

“They’re coming this way and you need to help—!”

But the rogues came on quick.

“Come… this way!”

“You… pay for this!”

“Wah! Sorry, I’m going!”

She launched herself off and kept running, her robe lifting in her wind.

The lieutenant’s dumbfounded body gave way to fear as the six rogues met up with them. Their blades drawn, breath in shambles, the bandit’s obscured faces perspired and were ruddy.

“Get out of way! We moving…!”

He couldn’t catch that last part.

Watermann caught his rifle and fixed his bayonet.

“Stop your chase. Now,” he bit out in the learned vernacular.

“That wench… she owe us. Stay out!”

“Sorry,” Dave said in his tongue as he followed Watermann’s lead. “But if a girl wants our help, I’m not one to decline.”

“Eh? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying—!” Knowing they wouldn’t understand a word. “I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“Come,” one rogue said. “No fight.”

They lowered their bayonets slightly, and the bandits followed. But when it seemed they could reach a resolution…

“You fool!”

One of them went in for the kill, messy and untrained. Watermann easily skewered the man between the ribs, impaling him cleanly. He yanked it out and muttered to himself.

“Crap. Now I can’t call the guards.”

“Wasn’t an option. We’re too far in.”

The lieutenant confronted the remaining five.

“Lay down your arms!” he said with an accent.

They did nothing but stare at the writhing man on the ground.

Dave jutted his bayonet. “Bully for you! Get on, you punks!”

“Bastard!”

The crowd closed in, inching in on a thin wire, ready to spring. Watermann and Dave huddled together, trying to restrain every instinct that screamed to shoot these guys and get it over with.

Dave made his first move. He pounced on one, driving his blade into the man’s chest. Watermann stabbed the other in the belly, slicing it open and causing him to spill guts over the street. But Dave kept yanking and yanking, and the bayonet merely dug deeper and deeper into the dying man’s body.

Another rogue charged and got his blade in, cutting up the lieutenant’s arm real good. He screamed in pain, dropping his rifle as the entrenchment tool came out in record time. The sharpened spade dug and opened his neck; the scream curdling and releasing as a guttural growl of an exposed windpipe. He hacked and hacked until the thing came smooth off. His heart pumped, the blood seeping through his face as remnants of those times came rushing back. The two rogues approached with hesitation, fury, and tears streaming down their faces. Watermann caved in one’s head with his rifle stock, and Dave split the other man open with his spade.

They clutched themselves in agony, panting and whining like game dogs after a bloody match. Dave’s arm pumped profusely as he kicked the body off his stuck bayonet.

“You…” Watermann heaved. “You and your principles…”

“Didn’t even matter. Was going to happen eventually.”

His arm bled in droplets and streams. Dave huffed and groaned and grit his teeth.

“We’re not fit for this world. This is all we do.”

They limped towards the light of the main street, leaving the alley where the law would betray both sides. Only the sword remained, and her judgments quietly whimpered in pain as they died.

Watermann quickly moved to tie off the wounded arm. The bleeding tapered, but without alcohol solvents or more clean bandages, their first aid kits would only delay infection. Dave felt around for further wounds and paled as he realized something was missing.

He ran off, following the girl’s last known trail.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Dave ran faster and faster until the blinding light from the two suns filled the building shadows. The girl was waiting for them, rattled and waiting at the mouth of the valley.

“You’re… you’re alive?”

“Can it. Pocket watch. Where is it?”

“What do you mean—?”

“Give it back!” he cried. “Give it back! That doesn’t belong to you!”

“Are you injured? You know, I can heal your arm if you like!”

“I don’t care! I don’t care if you can speak my language fluently or if you can zap us out of here. Give it back! Now!”

Dave grabbed her one-handed by the collar, and she offered little resistance.

“Hey—wait! Let her go, Lieutenant!”

“Now!”

“Dave! What are you doing?”

“Fine! Here! Have it!”

She dug into her robe and handed it to him, cupping his red-stained palm before he furiously shoved it into his pocket.

Let go.

He did.

The girl bore the shame of being found out, the anger of a swindler’s failed attempt, and between all that, the scared twittering of a young girl.

“Let a dying man be with his girl,” Dave said as he sank to his knees. “Just this once.”

“Lieutenant!” Watermann shouted. “Girl, you said you could heal him?”

“I—I can.”

“Then, by God, do it!”

Dave could hardly protest as she grabbed his arm. She closed her eyes, within a deep state, and hovered her hand over the bubbling wound.

“I come to you in my plight, I come to you in celebration. You, who are most worthy, you who are most holy. Bless me with thy works and make me thy hand.”

“Divine rite.”

Faint motes of green energy escaped from her hand and flowed over Dave’s wounds like water, soothing and tempering the pain. Like invisible stitches, the flesh sutured itself together. Watermann stood gob-smacked, observing how the little tendrils of flesh and nerve found the coupling and joined. After two minutes of her constant muttering and gentle motions, the lieutenant’s arm returned to normal.

“How did you… oh, forget it. I know exactly what you did.”

“You are familiar with it?”

“Not in the slightest,” Dave said as his face softened. “But maybe all too much.”

Watermann dropped to a knee, submitting himself ultimately.

“Thank you! Thank you for saving my friend and superior!”

“Thank you…”

The girl waved back his praises and stammered.

“It—it’s the least I could do. A—and I’m sorry about stealing your treasured item. I was just so desperate…”

Her stomach rumbled.

“A—and so hungry. When the debtors came to capture and sell me, I really thought it was the end.”

Dave flexed his arm, engaging every little digit with minute motions. Everything was in its right place, except for the left sleeve of his uniform, which remained cut open. His eyes lingered on the continuing pace of the city. Some pedestrians glanced quickly, but looked away at a similar pace. The lieutenant, for a moment, thought he was back in that crucible of magnesium flame and machine-gun ire. But he wasn’t. Like nothing had happened at all, the people continued. Except he had killed three slavers, and was no more guilty for it.

And he was alive under new suns.

With his friend beside him.

The thief before him was his oppressor, his origin of recent troubles, but she was also a scared, remorseful girl. With no one else who cared to help in her time of need.

Just another kid down on her luck.

Seeing her downcast expression, the lieutenant perked up and rummaged through his pack. Finding the little tin with flags and a foreign, now irrelevant brand, Dave opened it up and grabbed a piece of chocolate.

He handed it to her, and she tilted her head in slight curiosity, but when she realized her gesture, the girl balked away and blushed.

“You know, I’ve never met a kid who could reject this.”

“I am no child,” she muttered as her fingers felt the ridges of the square molded from saccharine cacao. Hesitantly, the girl popped it into her mouth and let the melting bittersweet of dark chocolate take her away.

“What happened to emergencies, Lieutenant?”

“This is one.”

“Sounds half-baked to me.”

“Will you stop being a smart-ass if I give you one, too?”

“Yup.”

Dave took another square and flicked it into the private’s mouth, eliciting some light applause from the girl.

“So, after this entire ordeal, I have a burning question.”

“Which is…?”

“What is your name?”

The girl smiled.

“My name is Eleanor Garsenda, Mage-at-Arms.”