The Mountains of Mourning

Book 1 - Chapter 5 - Patrick

"Soooo," Lloyd said, drawing out the word as he leaned on the handle of his axe, "what are you going to do about them?"

Hyram's transport pod hovered silently next to Tarsus, glowing a faint orange, but this time from the reflected first rays of sunlight peeking from behind the horizon. The casket had cooled down enough for them to take it back with them.

While Lloyd had built the campfire up to something that, according to him, would be a better deterrent against monsters that lived in these woods, Patrick stood between his two friends, feeling more torn and helpless by the minute. He had to make a decision soon. They had one working pod and two badly hurt people. It hadn't been hard to see, once he could get close enough, the scorched wound on the side of Hyram's head and remember the spray of blood that hit his own pod just after the shell had closed. One of the attackers had shot him, and Val had put him in a pod and sent him through.

"What's the note about?"

Wordlessly, Patrick handed the crumpled and smeared mess of paper over. The letters were hastily scribbled in something very dark and flaky. He didn't want to think about what that was.

"Take care of him. I'll keep them off your trail for as long as I can."

Lloyd handed it back and sighed.

"She isn't coming then."

"No."

The idiot! Why would Val stay behind? She was no hero. She didn't do last stands. She always told him to take any chance, any, to get away, no looking back, no hesitation, don't be a hero. Could it be fake, written by one of the Tyrant's minions after they caught her? He doubted it. They wouldn't have let Hyram go, no matter the state he was in. Val had loved the man. If she'd been captured, they would have used him to make her squeal out everything she knew. It was strange to think of her as someone who could actually love anyone, and she would be the first to deny it, but he had seen them together, had seen her. Life as a soldier had been hard on her. It had taken so much of her humanity and sanity that most people would have call her mad. But when she looked at Hyram, there had been something there, something soft and oh so fragile.

Take care of him.

What did it even mean? Let the pod heal him. That was the obvious choice. What if that wasn't what she meant? Give him a merciful end? Bury him in this foreign soil, let him rest in peace?

Tarsus coughed, tried to sit up, and fell back again. Lloyd dropped the axe and held a small metal cup to the kid's mouth. Patrick shook his head in wonder. In the time that man had been here, he had managed to stay alive, find several cargo pods and gather the supplies, collected and cleaned water for drinking, and even found a way to climb to the top of this mountain. It was amazing.

But now that there were four of them, even though the pod would take care of feeding and laving Hyram, that previous wealth of supplies was going to be woefully limited.

He knew what they had to do. There was only one option, really. Tarsus had a better chance at recovery. It would be faster and with a higher chance of a good outcome. As for Hyram, transport pods were medical marvels, but with a head shot like that, there was no way to tell what residual damage there might be. What if it healed the body but left him brain dead? They had to let him go.

"N-no..."

He looked up at the unexpected croak.

"Shhh, relax, you're going to be fine. Here, try another sip."

"N-no... don't..."

Tarsus feebly tried to bat away the cup from his mouth, his eyes bright with fever fixing on Hyram's pod. He shook his head wildly, coughed again.