The Free Trader of Warren Deep (Free Trader Series Book 1) (24 page)
Read The Free Trader of Warren Deep (Free Trader Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Craig Martelle
The return trip to the road was uneventful.
Skirill and G-War were waiting for them. The horses were still tied to a nearby tree. Braden hadn’t wanted them to wander off. They were sleeping standing up, without any concerns. The ‘cat was equally unperturbed. Only Skirill seemed anxious, but he was ready to fly in the open skies. It was the middle of the night, as well. Braden asked Micah if she was tired, which she was. So they decided to spend the remainder of the night in place.
Even if they wanted to continue that night, they couldn’t see. Zalastar probably would have escorted them further if they wanted, but there was no need. The Lizard Men guaranteed their safety any time they were in the rainforest. Braden was overwhelmed by the offer.
“Anytime? Even cycles from now if we travel through?”
‘Yes, Master Humans. Anytime means for as long as they remember who you all are, which that will be for a very long time. This has been a good turn for you, for us. I am honored to know you both,’
Master Aadi said.
With their final bows and silent waves, the Lizard Men melted back into the forest.
Braden rolled his blanket on the ground in the middle of the road. It was the highest point in the area and the most dry. Micah rolled her blanket out as well, seeking a similar dry spot to sleep.
“Thanks Micah. Thanks for suggesting we serve the Lizard Men. Once again, you delivered allies. It will be nice to go through here without having to worry, whether it’s on our way back to Village McCullough or wherever we may go. Are you sure you weren’t a trader in a previous life?”
“Don’t be insulting. I was a warrior in a prior life.”
“I think you’re a warrior now. I think the Lizard Men allowed us to serve them because they were afraid you were going to club their heads in like you did to those crocs. That was ridiculous!”
“What can I say? I was mad.” She laughed to herself as she put an arm under her head as a pillow.
Mad indeed. Braden was happy she was on his side. He wouldn’t like to face her in a real fight.
When the sun rose, a new daylight would come with new challenges. They’d all stretch their wings a bit as they left the Amazon and entered the area where Sanctuary had been built.
Until then, as usual when G-War watched over him, Braden slept well. Not only G-War, but the entirety of the Lizard Men watched over them, too.
Skirill launched himself from Micah’s lap. He couldn’t wait any longer. He flew the last of the tree and vine tunnel, low to the road before bursting into the open air.
The rainforest ended abruptly as the ancients’ mastery over nature was again demonstrated. The trees grew thickly and within a few paces, there were no trees at all, only dry grasses waving in a gentle breeze. Rolling hills were before them, beyond which, nothing grew, not trees, grass, or even weeds.
“When you came here, where were you?”
Micah pointed. “Probably over those hills, far to the east. We may not be able to see where we were, even from up there.” One of the hills rose a little more than the others. Beyond a certain point, everything looked barren.
The Hawkoid soared high overhead.
Aadi looked on wide eyed.
G-War was asleep in Braden’s lap, happy that he was finally dry and in the sun.
They spurred the horses to a trot, covering ground quickly. The area of destruction was immense, all the way to the horizon.
As they reached the top of the largest rolling hill, they looked down on a basin where the city of Sanctuary once sat. It was still there, but leveled. Large debris stuck out, but nature was winning the battle, reclaiming what it once had. Whatever weapons they used, the effects no longer lingered. Grasses grew, not tall, but they grew. What they thought was barren, was not.
Braden imagined how it looked when it first happened. Thunder, lightning, fire, and even earthquakes. The worst parts of nature, brought together at one time, in one place. This confirmed his belief that the ancients were masters of the earth and the sky. They commanded the weather. They commanded the ground. They could grow an oasis in the heart of the desert.
And then they used that power to destroy. Maybe it was an accident, but Braden didn’t think so. The ancients had fought, but instead of bows and swords, they used the power of their technology.
And it almost killed them all.
Only those who ran away from the technology survived.
Was Braden’s quest misguided? Did he want to see that kind of power returned to man? He knew what they would do with it. Conquests. Personal power. If only the traders had the power, then above all, trade would go on. Even as a trader, his goal was to become wealthy enough that he could settle down. He wasn’t sure anyone could manage the power of Old Tech without being corrupted.
Micah watched Braden struggle to make sense of how he could bring Old Tech to the north without the danger it represented.
“This is what I wanted you to see. I wanted you to make your own decision whether Old Tech should be brought back.” Micah said in a soft voice.
“Yet you carry a blaster?” Braden said matter-of-factly. He wasn’t trying to start a fight. He only wanted to understand.
“This blaster was used to bring fear so that one man could rule. One man, who passed it down, son to son, so they could always rule. Because of this one piece of Old Tech, that family was the definition of evil. No one should ever have that much power over another. I carry it as a prize and a symbol to show that evil can be defeated.”
“Why didn’t you destroy it?”
She nodded. “I tried. Rocks can’t hurt it, it seems. As long as I carry it, no one else can find it and use it.”
“But it doesn’t have any power…” Braden started.
“The man I took it from had a way to recharge it. If he gets this back, he’ll kill everyone in my village. The only reason he didn’t before is that we paid him in fish and vegetables. Now it’s different. If he brought this and all the men… I’m afraid to think what he would do to my family.”
“He won’t do anything because we won’t let the Old Tech get into the hands of those who would misuse it. We’re your family now and we won’t let anything happen to you.” Max and Pack were side by side. Braden reached out a hand to put on Micah’s shoulder.
‘Hungry.’
They both looked at G-War as he stretched. His claws extended full length from his stretched out front legs, then retracted as he sat upright on Braden’s lap.
“The world is yours, Master Golden Warrior of the Stone Cliffs.” Braden said, waving one arm with a flourish. The ‘cat looked out upon the grassy wasteland, then cocked his head to one side.
‘Go that way,’
is all he said.
Braden trusted G-War. With a shrug, he pulled Max’s head away from Pack and spurred him to a distance-covering trot. Micah carefully nudged Pack forward, turning his head after he was moving. He joined up with Max shortly.
“You’re getting better,” Braden told her. She smirked at him. Better wasn’t necessarily a compliment. She should be able to ride a horse by now, but still struggled. She was better than when she spurred Max to a panic as they approached Village McCullough. Then again, she hadn’t ridden Max since then. Pack was a pack horse, never intended for riding. She’d have to broach this with Braden, maybe for the return trip through the Amazon. He wasn’t watching her as she caught up with him. He was looking at an island of green in the distance.
“Ess, can you take a look over there and see what that is? Can you see what I’m talking about?” Braden said aloud, but knowing that it was his thought voice that the Hawkoid would hear. With a screech from high above them, Skirill passed and continued gliding southwest. He beat his wings to gain altitude as he shrunk to a black dot. Then he disappeared into the distance.
Braden was uncomfortable. A sea of green in the middle of the ruined area made him think of the oasis. That meant Bots. “G, do you sense anything?”
‘Deer. Nothing else,’
the ‘cat said.
“Have you ever seen anything like that?” He asked Micah.
“No. I wonder if there are people?”
“There aren’t. G would know. It looks like the oasis where we stayed before our final leg out of the Great Desert. I think there might be Bots there, mechanical creatures created by the ancients. They build. They serve. G doesn’t like them because he can’t sense them.” Braden squinted his eyes as he tried to see into the distance.
He watched as beams of light slashed into the sky.
“Skirill!” He screamed, spurring Max into a full run. Pack jogged along behind, losing ground with each step. Micah struggled to stay on his back.
‘They missed, kind of, whatever they were. I had to go south. I’ll fly for a while and circle back to you.’
Skirill said, anxiety cracking his thought voice. As an afterthought, he added,
‘I’m scared.’
He didn’t need to say it. They were all instantly scared. Braden slowed Max and waited for Pack to catch up. He looked at Micah who nodded.
“It looks kind of like a Blaster,” she said. “We can’t fight that.”
“Who’s using it?” Braden asked, thinking out loud. No one in the caravan had the answer.
He wanted to get closer where he could use his telescope. Micah was right about him. He needed to see things for himself.
Skirill made it back to them, his tail feathers scorched. He saw Bots in the oasis, more like the Mirror Beast from the first oasis they came across. He wasn’t sure if there were the smaller Maintenance Bots. There were deer, too. A few small buildings stood in the middle of the trees, but nothing like the structure with the rooms where Braden had rested at Oasis Zero One.
They stopped on a small hill between them and the land oasis as they talked, while Braden looked through his rudimentary telescope. He showed Micah how to hold the glass in place with the wrapped stiff hide. Big lens at the front, small at the back. Bring the image into focus by squeezing the middle of the hide while looking through the small end.
They saw what Skirill told them was there. Two Mirror Beasts at the perimeter, buildings standing among the trees. The trees were more like what they’d seen in the rainforest, otherwise, it looked no different from the oases in the Great Desert.
Master Aadi was on the ground, struggling mightily to walk the last few steps to the top of the hill. No wonder he floated everywhere. G-War crouched low, watching.
“Are you sure the light came from the Mirror Beast?” Braden asked Skirill as they crouched by the hilltop.
“Yesss. It was clear. ‘irror ‘east. They are di’’erent ‘ro’ the desert ‘east.” Skirill said out loud in his hissing Hawkoid voice. “They ha’e ar’s.”
“They have arms. Interesting. The desert Beast didn’t attack us, so I agree. These are different, Ess and you have some burnt feathers to prove it. The question is, what do we do now?”
“We leave,” Micah said firmly. “We get the crap away from here.”
Braden looked at her. She was pragmatic, a survivor, not a coward. He wished he could leave, but he traveled a long way to get here. Turning around so close to his goal was too much like failure. He didn’t like to fail.
Sanctuary was supposed to be destroyed. This oasis said otherwise. It said something survived, something more powerful than the Bots in Oasis Zero One. Braden buried his face in the dirt as he wrestled with himself. What was it about the Old Tech that drew him?
Maybe it wasn’t the Old Tech as much as the knowledge it represented. Braden wanted answers. He wanted to know if people survived on Cygnus VI. He wanted to know what went wrong and could they fix it. He wanted the best of both worlds, an incredible bed to sleep in and land to hunt. He wanted people to smile as the hologram had smiled. Every tidbit he learned about the ancients made him think of more questions.
He needed to know.
“Let’s make camp. We can sleep on it.” He told Micah. Braden had no intention of sleeping.
As the sun disappeared to the west and darkness settled over them, Braden rolled into his blanket, back toward Micah. She did the same thing. Sleep did not come easily to her. Braden rolled back to watch her, waiting for his moment.
He woke with a start. He had fallen asleep and it was now well toward sunrise. Micah was breathing deeply and slowly. She was asleep.
Leaving his blanket on the ground, he carefully adjusted his belt pouch, his long knife, and recurve bow. With one last look at Micah’s sleeping form, he carefully walked away.
Two eyes gleamed at him from the darkness.
Golden Warrior of the Stone Cliffs sat near the top of the hill, waiting for him.
Braden leaned down and whispered, “You know I have to do this.”
‘I know it. I don’t support it,’
the ‘cat said with a sharp edge to his thought voice.
“I’d ask you to come along, but I know that you and Bots don’t exactly see things the same way.”
‘I shall come regardless. It can’t do this alone.’
“No it can’t,” came Micah’s voice from behind him.
“Holy crap! You scared the hell out of me. Don’t sneak up on people like that!”
“Don’t sneak away, and I wouldn’t have to. Where do you think you’re going?” She asked.
“You know where I’m going. Your real question is why,” Braden answered. She waited. He knew she was glaring at him, although he could only see her outline in the darkness of the early morning.
“I need to know, Micah. I need to know why and what. I need to know about Cygnus VI. How can the ancients harness the power of the sun? How do they control the weather? So many questions. They weigh on me.”
“The more you learn, the more you want to learn? Remember when you didn’t know any of this existed? There was no Cygnus VI. Why does it matter now?” She asked softly as she moved closer to him, the starlight glinting in her eyes.
“I don’t want to learn. I have to learn. I have to know.” Braden repeated himself, emphasizing his point.
“I don’t understand and I definitely don’t think this is worth risking all our lives. But I’m in. We’re all in. Now don’t get us killed!” She directed. Braden shook his head.
“No. I’m not going to risk your lives. This is mine, my risk.”
“You should have thought of that before we came here. If you go all the way, so do we. Sometimes you seem really smart and then there’s the rest of the time.” She leaned forward, smiling, their noses almost touching. With a quick motion, she had him by both arms, pushing him backwards, slamming him on the ground. His bow dug harshly into his back.
She pinned him to the ground. He stopped fighting. She leaned in and kissed him fiercely. His breath caught. She bit his lip as she pulled back.
“I might even like you if you ever pull your head out of your butt.” She stood up, then headed back down the hill to their small camp. Braden lay there, wondering what just happened. He wasn’t sure he liked it. However he was certain that when they went to the oasis, it would be all of them.
