Rend Hope (11 page)

             
"It's not when my entire family is dead!  Your best will never be good enough Markus!" She screamed back.  An uncomfortable silence followed the heated exchange as the two continued to glare at each other.

             
"So I guess it's going to be like that huh?" Markus finally said.

             
"I guess it is." Rosalind agreed.

             
"Fine then.  Let's see if you can follow through on your words and kill me then." He challenged, getting into a fighting stance.  Rosalind responded with a derisive snort.

             
"Enjoy these last moments of life while you can Markus." She responded also dropping into a fighting stance.

**********

              "So how do we know which way the vice-sheriff went?" One of the deputies, a young man in his early twenties, asked Kendal.  The sheriff of Midas City was currently kneeling on his left knee, his left hand digging through the blood soaked sand that was surely the remains of the southern scouting team.

             
"Janine will have left something behind that we'll notice.  Keep an eye out." Kendal ordered.  The sheriff heard four verbal acknowledgements as he continued to sift through the sand.  They had arrived sooner than expected as Kendal had pushed the scouting team harder than usual.  Fortunately, the deputies were used to hard work, Kendal took a small bit of pride in the fact that the team was only slightly winded.  They looked like they had just got done with a light jog rather than a multi-kilometer run.

             
As Kendal continued to investigate the bloody sand and torn crimson-stained uniforms he began to frown.  Whoever killed the scouting team obviously didn't want the bodies found.  Five blood trails in five different directions.  Which trail was Janine following now?  She knew backup was coming and had to have left some sort of sign.

             
Following a suspicion, Kendal reached into the dark green backpack he was currently wearing.  He pulled out a pair of grey binoculars, these were no ordinary binoculars though.  They acted similar to Janine's sorcery analyzer on her right eye.  It was made by her and according to her the binoculars were an "Obsolete" design.  That was his girlfriend, something that she invented not even a year ago was already obsolete.

             
Still, if his hunch was correct there would be a sign of her sorcery at play.  And even if the binoculars were "Old" they should be able to pick up on it.  As he put it to his eyes and examined his immediate area he found what he was looking for with the blood trail that headed back west.  Kendal smiled as he put his binoculars back in his backpack and made his way to the start of that trail.  He reached into the sand with his left hand and after digging for a few moments, he pulled out a card with a red arrow pointing west on its surface.  So that was the trail Janine was investigating.

             
"Over here!" he called out to the rest of his team, who quickly reassembled behind him.  Kendal stood back up and gazed to the west.  If he remembered correctly, this would lead to the West Coast Ruins.  "Janine left us a little present, let’s hurry and catch up with her.  The desert wasteland is no place to wander alone, even for a magi." His team voiced their assent.  They quickly took off to the west, following the trail of blood.

             
For morale reasons Kendal did not inform his team of his concerns.  If Janine wasn't there to greet them that meant she could be in trouble.  Engaged in battle with an enemy, lost, or worse.  He shook his head slightly, it was useless to let his doubts play tricks on his mind.  He had to trust that Janine was strong enough to handle herself.  It would take something pretty strong to take her down.

             
As his team continued following the trail, Kendal couldn't shake the nervous feeling that Janine had indeed encountered something pretty strong.  He willed himself to try and move faster.

Chapter 9

              Benjamin cursed as he was forced to dive out of the way of the giant eagle that Janine had summoned yet again.  He wasn't having any luck in attempting to destroy it so far since she had summoned it.  When the red-haired youth threw some rocks at the giant bird it had proven to be surprisingly evasive.  So he switched tactics and went after Janine instead.  That too had proven ineffective as Janine countered that strategy by getting on the bird's back.  Now, if he wanted to get to the vice-sheriff he had to go through the bird first.

             
Janine frowned at the development, while she was able to avoid all of the red-haired kid's spells and attacks.  She hadn't had any luck with her offense either, the kid was deceptively fast and what he couldn't dodge he would block with a giant stone of some sort.  She had caught him off-guard early on with her spells, but now he was wary to them.  They were at a stalemate.

             
"Are you sure you won't reconsider telling me where your master is hiding?" Janine asked the youth, He sighed in response.

             
"Look lady, I'd love to really.  Like I said before though, shit is complicated." He answered.

             
"Define complicated." Janine demanded, the red-haired youth shook his head.

             
"He's not someone I can just directly oppose." He told her.

             
"And why is that?" She questioned, Benjamin took his eyes off her for a moment, but in that moment Janine saw a look of sadness and bitterness in his eyes.  As soon as it appeared though it was gone.  His eyelids closed over his eyes and he sighed, rubbing the back of his head with his left hand.

             
"You ask too many questions." He stated, opening his eyes once more.  Benjamin had to admit it was tempting.  To tell someone where that bastard was and have his ass killed.  However, he had to admit Ebrim was not a pushover.  This lady was pretty powerful herself, but she still stood a chance of losing to his "Master." If she did and Ebrim suspected he had something to do with it, he would probably destroy the bloodstone that held his sister's soul.  It was just too risky.

             
Janine watched as the boy lifted himself up on a stone pillar with his sorcery.  The pillar was about two meters in diameter and raised up to about thirty meters high.  The vice-sheriff had her bird fly higher and keep its distance from the red-haired boy.  This was a little different from his other tactics.

             
Once the pillar stopped rising into the air, the youth stretched out his right arm to the side so it was parallel to the ground.  He spread the fingers of his right hand out.  The back of his hand facing Janine, the thumb was pointed towards the sand-covered land.  The hand began to glow yellow and the vice-sheriff's sorcery analyzer on her right eye began to go haywire.

             
From the ground next to the pillar, Janine saw a giant baseball bat shoot out of the ground to hover near the youth's outstretched hand.  The handle was a size that a normal person would be able to grip easily, it was wrapped in white cloth.  The rest of the "Bat." was not how she saw it in the lorekeeper's books.  It was thick, almost as thick as the pillar the kid was standing on.  With the exception of the handle of the cloth it was gray in color.  The oversized bat was nearly as tall as he was and strange glowing yellow glyphs adorned it.

             
Despite its large size, the youth wielded it like it was a feather.  Twirling the stone bat in his right hand easily before gripping the handle tightly.  He pointed the bat at Janine.

             
"No more questions vice-sheriff.  I don't like someone who's soon to be dead making inquiries." He announced.

             
Janine frowned, the look of sadness had returned to his eyes, but once again it was a fleeting moment.  His stare soon hardened as he prepared to continue their battle.

***********

              "Are you certain you don't want me to remove that jacket from you?" Ebrim asked his new ally.  They were back at his hideout, currently sitting in what used to be the house's dining room.  Both were seated at opposite ends of a dusty wooden table, a drink rested near Ebrim while Sahiron's side of the table was bare.  Sahiron looked down at the straight jacket he was strapped into.

             
"No thanks, I actually prefer to keep it on." Sahiron informed him, Ebrim raised an eyebrow at this.

             
"It isn't cumbersome at all?  Even in battle?" The dark-haired man inquired, his answer from Sahiron was a grin.

             
"I took out those looters easily enough didn't I?" The straight-jacket clad necromancer replied.  Ebrim leaned back in his chair to get more comfortable.

             
"I see your point.  Still, I remain curious." The dark-haired necromancer said, Sahiron smirked.

             
"Maybe you'll get to see why in the upcoming battle." The formerly imprisoned man informed him.

             
Ebrim took a sip from his drink.  Obviously from his display at the prison, Sahiron was a necromancer and he had also agreed to help conquer a city full of human beings without batting an eye.  However, Ebrim was still unsure as to how strong he really was.  The dark-whiskered necromancer didn't like hidden factors like that, they tended to come back and haunt you.  He didn't want to press the issue and lose his newfound ally so soon so he decided to drop the subject, for now.

             
"So when do we strike?" Sahiron asked.

             
"Tomorrow night." Ebrim answered.

             
"Why wait until tomorrow?" Sahiron questioned.  "I'm not particularly fond of sitting around, since I've been doing that a few years."

             
"I'd rather wait until my apprentice comes back tonight.  I need to get him up to speed and by tomorrow night we should be ready." Ebrim replied, Sahiron looked skeptical.

             
"You're making us wait over an apprentice?  Is he really even worth waiting for?" Sahiron asked, Ebrim smiled knowingly.

             
"Oh but he is far from an ordinary apprentice."  The dark-whiskered necromancer said, Sahiron looked skeptical, he didn't see how a mere apprentice would add to much to their joint efforts.

             
"How so?" The straight-jacket clad necromancer inquired, Ebrim leaned forward, his eyes bright with sadistic glee.

             
"For one he has unique abilities and the other, well...he's very good at following orders." Ebrim answered with a smirk.  "Let me relay to you one of my favorite stories where he went above and beyond for me."

**********

Five months ago.

The Scorched Plains, formerly w
hat was once part of Arizona. 

             
"You want me to what?" Benjamin asked the man blackmailing him.  Ebrim smiled and once more pointed to the group of tents they were currently watching.  From their vantage point, the tents were just tiny dots.

             
"I want you to go and take care of them, they are getting too close to my camp and I can't afford any interruptions at this point." Ebrim repeated his instructions. Benjamin frowned, he had been monitoring that group of survivors from afar for a few days now.  They couldn't be bandits as they had helped two people, an older man with grey hair and a thin frame and a young girl, about his age.  She looked a lot like Rebecca, his sister, so much so that he almost jumped out of his hiding spot to embrace her.  The only major difference between them was the hair color, this girl's hair was a light-brown color upon closer inspection while his sister's was red.

             
"They're just survivors, I've been watching them.  The only thing they are set on is where to find their next meal.  Not rooting out necromancers." The flame-haired youth explained, Ebrim merely shrugged.

             
"I don't care, I want them gone." The elder dark-haired man said, Benjamin winced at his answer.

             
"Look Ebrim, there's no need to..." The teenager protested, but Ebrim's smile quickly disappeared from his face.

             
"I believe I made myself clear, apprentice." Ebrim replied, his tone as cold as ice.  He turned to glare at Benjamin, "Take care of this problem now, or your sister's soul will meet a most unpleasant end."  The necromancer finished, to make his point more clear, he held up the bloodstone with his sister's imprisoned soul in his left hand. 

             
Benjamin glared at the dark-whiskered man, shaking with fury.  He had never been so frustrated in his life than this month of indentured servitude to Ebrim.  Being forced to bring "Materials" for his necromantic experiments was bad enough, but now he wanted him to go and kill some people who were just trying to survive the Scorched Plains?  What a fucking cowardly bastard.

             
"Fine." Benjamin finally replied after a long pause.  Trekking his way slowly across the barren landscape to the survivor camp.  With a heavy heart, he used his sorcery to pull forth large boulders from the ground near the tents.  Hesitating for as long as he dared, Benjamin finally began dropping the rocks onto the unsuspecting people, doing his best to block out the cries of alarm, the screaming and mostly the sound of bones breaking as his stones found their targets.

**********

              It was a massacre, most were dead before they even knew they were under attack.  A few of the lucky ones survived the initial assault.  A couple of even luckier ones identified him as the threat, taking a few potshots at him with their pitiful firearms.  The looks on their faces told Benjamin everything, that they were resigned to their death.  He respected the fact that they went down fighting and made a mental note to give them a proper burial later.

             
The survivor's camp was in ruins, rocks, boulders and bodies littered the cracked earth.  Blood soaked freely into the parched ground and corpses were strewn about everywhere.  Benjamin's mission was a success, but never had he felt so hollow about victory.

             
As the teenager waded through the destroyed camp, he shook his head.  They were just minding their own business, just like his family used to do.  That's all anybody can ask for nowadays in this hell of a world "Don't mess with my shit and I won't mess with yours." He rather liked that motto.  Unfortunately that, along with a few other things he had to do away with once he became Ebrim's unwilling apprentice.

             
All of Benjamin's thoughts stopped dead in their tracks when he caught sight of her.

The girl that
looked like his sister was lying on her back, eyes staring sightlessly into the sky, a meter-long spike of rock protruded from her abdomen.  The girl was lying in a pool of her own blood.  To Benjamin, the lifelessness this girl exhibited hit too close to home, she looked too much like Rebecca, what she would become if he let Ebrim destroy the bloodstone that held her soul.  He quickly turned around and exited the camp as hastily as possible, trying to get the mental image of the dead girl out of his mind and failing.

***********

              "It's done.  Everyone's dead." Benjamin informed Ebrim, they were inside a dilapidated mansion.  Ebrim's current base of operatons.  Part of the ceiling had already caved in and Benjamin suspected that the rest would soon follow, perhaps in less than a month.  The cracked walls of the mansion were almost stripped bare, with only an occasional painting which had long seen better days hanging astray.  At least the spiral staircase was still somewhat sturdy, wide enough for two people to walk side by side as well.

             
Currently, Benjamin and Ebrim were on the second floor.  The dark-haired necromancer himself had turned one of the bedrooms into a lab of sorts.  Ebrim was examining a vial of thick yellow liquid at the moment, although he didn't turn to face his reluctant apprentice he did cock up an eyebrow in acknowledgement.

             
"Everyone?" Ebrim asked, Benjamin lowered his head and looked away, he didn't want to give that bastard the satisfaction of seeing him in pain.

             
"Yeah everyone, they're all pretty fucking dead...I checked." Benjamin answered bitterly, the youth was not surprised when he saw that stupid smirk cross Ebrim's face.  He was however, surprised by what he said next.

             
"Benjamin." Ebrim stated his name and paused for a moment, finally turning his head to look at his apprentice.  "I didn't say you had kill all of them."  All the color immediately drained from the red-haired youth's face.

             
"But...you said..." Benjamin tried to speak, tripping over his own words.

             
"I said I wanted them gone, I never said anything about murdering them." Ebrim clarified, the smirk on his face turned into a wide grin.  "But thanks, it's so nice to know that you’re willing to go the extra mile to please me Benjamin."  The teenager was in too much shock to reply.  "That's all I have for you today my apprentice, you may go do what you like.  Don't wander off too far however, I may need your assistance later."  And with that, Ebrim turned so that his back was facing him and continued with his research.