The Wasteland Soldier, Book 1, A Fractured World

Six

The sun rose, insipid warmth spreading from a feeble blue sky slashed with deep ravines of crimson. Dry thunder boomed in the distance and twisted grey clouds scudded in the light wind.

They had walked all night and as dawn had come they were still walking and waiting for the bandits to return. Stone had wounded them but that wound would need to be avenged and a violent reaction was something he knew and understood only too well. He had led them through the final miles of the city, along rubble filled streets littered with rusted and scorched vehicles, past the shattered buildings whose dark openings were akin to soulless eyes. The hours stretched until they had reached an iron bridge spanning a waterless river bed. Edging past long forgotten barricades, they had slowly traversed it.

Stone led from the front, cradling his rifle, goggles over his eyes, battered hat pulled down onto his head, blood stained long coat flapping in the wind.

Clear of the dead city, a weak sun touching skin, they trudged along a pitted and potholed road, slicing its way through a blistered scrubland, a land of parched canyons and blackened hills dotted with stunted dead trees. Exhausted and battered, Stone urged them off the road and into the brush, the ground hard and stubbly underfoot. He looked back once, checking that Emil and Tomas was keeping pace with him. The city behind them was a grey smudge, an ugly pile of broken concrete. He kept walking, eyes scanning, always alert. Emil was calling to him but he ignored her. She was an outsider, like him, belonging nowhere and to no one. In the years of crossing the wasteland, drifting from settlement to settlement, he had heard of the Blood Sun tribe, but had never encountered them. She had lost everything to them and, last night, he had almost lost Tomas but his friend was still here and he had no words for the strange girl with the strange powers - so he kept walking, breathing, surviving and waiting.

Walk. Breathe. Survive. Wait.

Walk. Breathe. Survive...

"Stone," said Tomas. "I need to rest."

She had healed his wounds but he was still limping. She had told them that she had never healed a man with such terrible wounds before. She had kept him alive and the blood was gone and scars showed on his skin but she knew it would take time for everything to be right once more. Stone had watched her vomit several times after healing Tomas, curious if the sickness was a punishment for her odd ability. Scouting ahead, he located a depression where they could rest out of sight. He took up position away from them, in the brush, and kept watch, sweeping the empty landscape with his binoculars, rifle on the ground next to him.

"How are you feeling?" asked Emil.

"Sore," said Tomas, stretching. "The leg still hurts. Chest not too bad."

He reached into his pack for a bottle of water that he had boiled last night and allowed to cool.

"Thirsty," he said, gulping it down, drops spilling over his chin. Sheepishly, he offered it to her. "Would you like some?"

She took a few sips before handing the bottle back.

"I thought, you know, thought I was dead. Everything got fuzzy. I kept blacking out. You saved my life."

"You saved mine," smiled Emil.

Tomas smiled back at her. He thought she was the most beautiful person in Gallen. Her ragged and dirty copper hair hanging bright around her face, her single green eye red rimmed. All the scars and markings across her skin, her face and neck, a trail of stories to be told, no more. She was so beautiful. She was so very beautiful. He was intoxicated, had never experienced this inner surge, never been touched in this way; the complete and overwhelming longing to hold and protect. There was an ethereal connection between them now, a spark that could not be seen. They were taller than any building. Stronger than any storm. They could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone.