Amish Vampires in Space (69 page)

His head burst through the surface. He gasped and twisted around. Gren, Riga, and Harnu stood on the bank, shrinking from sight. The forceful current swept him along. No matter how hard he tried, his efforts to swim for the shore seemed useless.

Like his life.

Gren and Riga? Why? Didn't Master Fenny know Riga was a selfish, lazy pig who couldn't deserve Gren in a million—

Achan saw a chance to escape the river. The poplar he had bested had gotten wedged into the entry channel of the moat that surrounded Sitna Manor. Achan reached for it and snagged the tip of a branch between his second and third fingers.

The branch held, and his body paused in the swift current. Water parted around his buoyed form. Hand over hand he pulled himself toward the side channel. Stiff brown branches snapped and scratched his face and hands. Finally he safely entered the murky current of the moat.

He let himself float along beneath the towering walls of the fortress. He shivered in the stinking water. The moat's current was weak and didn't flush the sewage from the manor's privies and kitchen as well as it was designed to. The brownstone walls of the manor loomed above. Two guards on the wall laughed and pointed down. Word spread on the sentry walk. By the time Achan sailed around the northwest corner, at least ten guards had congregated at the gatehouse.

Achan swam to the edge and hoisted himself up. Dirt from the bank muddied the front of his waterlogged tunic. His limbs shook with cold, and he stumbled under the portcullis, ignoring the jeers from above.

A figure stepped in his path. Sir Gavin.

Achan stood, soaked and stinking, trembling in the breeze. "I've l-lost my w-w-waster." And, he realized, his shoes. He was thankful Gren was still repairing Noam's hand-me-down boots. He would've hated to have lost those.

"In the moat?"

"R-Riga an 'ar-nu."

Sir Gavin nodded. "You'll have to make another."

Great. Now he had to learn carpentry or woodsmithing or whatever craft it took to make a wooden sword. At that point he didn't care. He had to get warm. He slouched past Sir Gavin toward the kitchens.

He squished down the stone steps to the cellar. He stripped off his wet clothes and crawled onto his pallet under the ale casks to warm himself. The image of Gren's tearful face was branded on his mind. Betrothed to Riga Hoff?

Pig snout!

• • •

"What about your sword?" Achan asked Sir Gavin as he filed the edge of his new wooden blade. White oak shavings peppered his feet with each stroke. "I've only seen you with your waster. You have a real one, don't you?"

Achan loved the smell of fresh sawdust and always enjoyed coming to the woodshed. Sir Gavin sat on a fat stump that was used as a chopping block. Rows upon rows of firewood were stacked up against the curtain wall. Achan had always wanted to see if he could climb it and reach the walkway above.

"Aye." Sir Gavin whittled a small block of pine. Achan had no idea what he was making. "But it would look mighty strange for me to tote around two swords everywhere I went, wouldn't it?"

Achan nodded. As he filed, he weighed matters with Gren. Strays were rarely permitted to marry anyway, so his hopes of a future with Gren had never been founded on reality. And, like Gren had said, her father had been looking for a husband for her for years. But Riga Hoff? Sure, Achan had expected
someone
to snatch up Gren. But not Riga. Someone older. Someone with life experience. Someone less like a swine. Someone mature and wealthy who could give her better clothes, provide for her. Young men rarely took a—

"If you're not careful, lad, the blade will be uneven. An uneven sword is difficult to learn on."

Sir Gavin's warning snapped Achan out of his lament. He quickly looked over his work and turned the wood to work a new spot. He clenched his teeth and returned to his thoughts. Never mind Gren—unless Achan could succeed as a knight and get out of Sitna, the best he could hope for was to end up like Poril. He shivered at the thought of a life serving Lord Nathak's meals and having to watch Gren and Riga's children chase the chickens around the outer bailey.

It took three days to finish the new waster. It wasn't as smooth as the last one, but Achan liked it better. It was his craftsmanship, after all. He set about his squire training with renewed vigor. The rest of the time he did his regular work for Poril, steering clear of Gren. He couldn't bear to face her just yet. Tired of walking around barefoot, he'd begged Noam to go and fetch the boots from her.

After one late-night practice, Achan asked, "Sir Gavin, can't I try a blunted blade? I'd like to at least hold one." The old knight had mentioned that blunts were used prior to real blades, and Achan was eager to get to the real thing.

Sir Gavin sniffed in a deep breath. "Aye, then. Tomorrow morning you can try it, but I think you'll see right away that you're not ready."

The next day, Achan met Sir Gavin in the wheat field before dawn, eager to prove himself worthy of knighthood and impress Master Fenny. As quickly as possible. Maybe a long engagement was planned. Maybe there was still a chance.

"Before we start," Sir Gavin said, stabbing one of the steel blades into the grassy soil, "we need to go over the basics."

Achan hid an impatient sigh. He recited: "Stay focused. Breathe deep. Mind your footwork. Look your attacker in the eye."

Sir Gavin cocked his head to the side. "Look him in the eye, but not just to stare him down. You want to watch all of him at once, see if you can anticipate his next move. Right?"

Achan nodded.

Sir Gavin handed him the blunt hilt first, then drew his own blade from the ground. "Now we'll see how you hold up against some real cuts. But I warn you, blunts are much more painful than wasters."

The fun was over. Sir Gavin knocked the blunt from Achan's hands six times before Achan could grip it tightly enough to hold on to it through a strike. Every hit rattled the bones in his arms all the way to his teeth.

He had trouble remembering everything at once. If he focused on following through with his arms so the strikes didn't sting, he forgot about his breathing. If he focused on his breathing, he forgot his footwork and stumbled. If he focused on his footwork, he forgot his arms and took a bruising blow or dropped his blade. And when he did get hit, the strikes hurt deeper than with the waster. He never once managed to look Sir Gavin in the eyes.

Sir Gavin paused for Achan to retrieve his blade from the ground yet again. "This is why we start with wasters. Tomorrow we go back to my way, but for today . . . " Sir Gavin grew ruthless. He nagged with each blunder and whacked Achan on the forehead with the flat of the sword.

Thwack!
"Ow!"

"Pick it up! If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead."

Thwack!
"Ow!"

"Never parry with the edge. Always use the flat."

Thwack! "Rai
se your sword. Middle guard. Else I can run you through."

Thwack!
"Don't attack from low guard. You're not good enough yet."

Thwack!
"Stop whining and keep your grip tight . . . but not too tight."

That night, Achan slept like he'd been drugged.

He woke to tremendous aches. They were back to using the wooden wasters that morning, and Sir Gavin guided him through slow motion role-play lessons. This was a much easier way to learn.

By the time Sir Gavin brought back the blunts, Achan could actually keep up. Still, he went to bed each night with fresh bruises on his hands, forearms, and shins.

Little by little, with each passing day, Achan improved.

To purchase
By Darkness Hid
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2000 AH, Day 36, 1:34:07 a.m.

[chute sleep]

I AM DREAMING, and yet I’m not.

The night is cool, calm—the opposite of the big stew that has just happened. Like the Abduls’ god was throwing everything he had down on the city. All flash and action. On the horizon I can still see the bursts of lightning, the power in the moving tempest.

The driftbarges took it the worse, of course. Seventeen of ’em rendered inoperable, according to messages on the stream. Unable to shift their precious cargo from sea to store.

Barges
are really land boats—angular hoverlifts on two sides and a large bay in the middle for product storage. The bay is fitted with arms able to lift the product, stack it. They’re built tough because they have to be. Anything that travels the streets has to be tough.

I am many stories above the streets. Seated in my personal transport on the strings—the cables that crisscross the upper levels—I scan the cityscape ahead. The streets are the reason for these too. Downriders travel the strings. Shiny, sleek, and compact, they carry people like me, and our glorious masters, to places we need to be. Without complication.

Complication
is always waiting for me to arrive. Like the barges.

“Your presence is needed there immediately!” my master’s voice says just now in my head.

That will take some explanation, I know. Don’t worry, freehead, we’ll get to that.

As my downer nears the stockyard, I see the mess the storm has made. To the east—my right—is the great river. A waterway snaking endlessly from north to south. To the west is another sort of river, but this one isn’t moving. A long line of dead barges, loaded with valuable supplies. A clogged roadway. Ahead of them, maybe a kilometer away, I can just see the receding taillights of the last barge that is functioning. A lumbering automated giant, able to unload itself while Abduls sleep. Useful equipment, when it works.

The yard is still dark. No one has gotten the lights back on yet? Odd, since I’m not the first to arrive. Masters hate stoppage, so everyone who owns a stalled driftbarge has awakened his personal DR and sent them out here. Soon my downrider will touch down and I’ll join them. There are nearly a dozen debuggers here already. I can sense every one of them in the stream.

I’m implanted, you see. Got a metal teardrop in my head. Keeps me connected to the information stream, helps me do my job. It does other things too. Things not as helpful. For me, anyway.

The work lights flicker on then, illuminating the yard below and the red downrider pylon ahead. Ten downers are nestled at the landing, though only one on the same string as mine.

That’s good, because deboarding gets a little shaky the further you are from the pylon, and I’m not a fan of shaky. I’d live at street level if I could. My downer stops, the transparent canopy slides back, and I step out. Reach back for my supply bag…

“Are you there yet, Sandfly?” my master asks, speaking straight to the implant again. He’s not as anxious as he may seem, though. Not really. He just plays the part for appearances’ sake. If he were actually upset he would’ve tweaked my head.

I respond in the affirmative, tell him I’ll update him when I can. He goes away then, promising to leave me to my work. He probably will, probably sleep the whole night away.

I take another look at the yard. I see at least three bald heads already scaling barges. For some reason these three have picked barges near the end of the line instead of near the front—those that will need to leave first. Low-level debuggers, I think. Have to be.

Or fixing only what they’re responsible for and leaving. Just as likely.

I stream to my nano-enhanced jumpsuit—standard fashion for a DR—and tell it to take the chill out. The nanos make their presence known, singing back an “OK” and then making with the heat. I smile at their responsiveness, the warmth my chest and limbs now feel. At least
something
here is working.

The pylon’s central ladder is already extended, so I grab hold and slide it to the ground. I make a quick check of the stream. Try to see if I’m familiar with any of the DRs hanging out there. In my mind the words form, becoming part of my personal—implant-created—waking dream.
DanceRate,
FrontLot, BerryMast…
Most are vague names to me, newer implants with only a single specialty.

Only the moniker
HardCandy
stands out at me. I know her by stream rep. She’s unique, unusual. Better than most, they say. And on top of that—female. Almost unheard of in our world. Abbys, I mean “Abduls,” like to keep females mostly for themselves. One with a shaved head must be truly remarkable.

Or real ugly.

To be social, I send out a quick “Hello” to anyone who cares to listen. I approach the mess, reaching the shadow of the nearest barge. This model is immense—maybe three times my height and thirty large steps long. Like all barges, its predominant color is grey, with only a burst of color—a logo or stylized script somewhere—to indicate its owner.

I get a handful of clipped acknowledgments in the stream. No real friends here. I can see bodies in motion on the ground too, though. Bald heads in jumpsuits climbing, running, pawing through their bags.

“Sandfly?” someone says then, aloud. A lanky youngster emerges, formerly hidden behind a barge to my right. He’s barely half my age, and, since I’m only twenty-five, that’s saying a lot.