Scorch: Chapter 1

TACK

Five Years After The Escape

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He waited, for it was all about patience. The leader of the bandits gripped Tesea by the throat and held a blade against her breast. Tack watched from his spot on the caravan roof and the man nodded.

“Throw the bow, boy!” the man yelled. Tack spun, shooting twice at the fool climbing the cart to get to him. The man fell to land on his back, two arrows in his forehead. Tack turned to the commander and smiled.

“That was the last of them,” Tack said. He slowly pulled an arrow from his quiver and notched it back. “You have no time. See, you have drawn my ire,” the young man said. “You have touched something that doesn’t belong to you. You have attacked my caravan, and you now hold a girl dear to me. For that, you should get an arrow in the eye. For that, you should fall to the sand never to rise again. But I hate killing, even stupid fools like you. So let her go and I will bind you and take you to the nearest authorities. Do it not and the last thing you see will be the tip of this arrow right here.”

The man stared at Tack a long moment before dropping the blade and stepping away from the girl. She spun to land a knee in his crotch. The man bent over and she grabbed him by the ears and jerked his head to her knee. He dropped to the ground and she reached for his knife. Tack put an arrow in the way. She looked up at him and he held another arrow in his hand.

“No Tesea, you’re not a murderess. Leave him to the ropes and the cage. To a wandering man that is hell enough.”

She seemed about to defy him, but Tack knew she would not. She turned to the rest of the caravan and the slaughter that had been made of the road.
Fifteen men lay dead in the sand. They looked desperate, hungry and dried up in this, the harshest part of Dead Syphere. The bandits were starved near death. They had acted out of need, deep devouring need, and Tack hated that so many of them had to die. He leapt from his nest atop the wagon and went to Whese, his employer.

The man was hard at work stripping the bandits down and taking every scrap of their belongings. “I want those arrows back,” Tack said. “Be gentle this time. Last time you harvested arrows for me, most of them were damaged.”

“Softer targets maybe might help in the harvesting. These skull shots leave them damaged, not my harvesting,” Whese said.

“Just get as many back to me as possible. The more you save, the less you have to pay to replace them.”

The caravan master and veteran trader nodded bitterly and turned back to his work. He was a swindler and a shrewd business man. Tack wondered what he would be back in Tienne if given a shop and some startup money. But that was not Whese’s lot. Here he was, stuck in the desert of Syphere, scratching a living out of the sand and the nomads. Whese had never let another of his guards tell him he was to see to their weapons. When Tack signed on four years earlier, Whese had told him that replacing the arrows was Tack’s responsibility.

But since then, many things had changed.

Tack went to the bandit leader and pulled the coarse rope he kept on his waist. “This won’t be comfortable,” Tack said. “This is the only cord I have. Whese won’t spare the silk on you. He gets a mighty prize for it from the wandering folk. You’re stuck with this.”

The man said nothing. He simply nodded.

Tack pulled his arms in front of him and bound them. He pulled the rest to the back of the wagon Tack sat upon and bound the man to it. “While we move, I will bind you up front. When we sleep, you will be unable to move. But the thought of binding a man like that all day pains me. I won’t do it.”

“Your speed and accuracy are beyond the myths we have heard,” the man said. “Had I known what you really were, I would never have come here.”

“What’s your name, bandit?”

“His name is Scat,” Tesea said.

The man winced. “My name is Antolon.”

“Well Antolon, I can’t say it is a pleasure to meet you, but I will say I wish you luck. I can’t let you go, but I will fight to keep you alive until we get to our next main city and I can hand you over to the justice of that place.”

“Of your kindness, there was no word. We had heard that Whese possessed the mightiest of warriors but not that the warrior himself was an honorable man. For your care, I thank you.”

Tack knew the man was a criminal. A killer and a thief. Antolon was the worst sort of person Tack had seen since he began working for Whese, but he could not help but see more of the man behind the acts of debauchery and evil.

“You will be walking behind. Try to keep up.”

“Yes, master archer. May Freya of the Mask bless you for your kindness.”

At the mention of the goddess, Tack winced. He turned and walked to the rest of the warriors who made up the small family he had lived with for years.
Of course they came and went. Only two remained from when he had joined Whese’s caravan. Tack walked to the group of them and they grinned.

“The Hawk has done it again,” Defene said. “Little Tack has saved us from the dangerous wastes and the horrors it can unleash.” He slapped a hand on Tack’s back that brought it to stinging.

“How did you fare?” Tack asked.

“Took a slight cut, nothing of note, and killed two. Grandes got one and Timbalt cut two down. That leaves ten for you. One of these days you are gonna have to tell me how you do that.”

Tack said nothing. He helped bind wounds and left.

When the caravan lurched to its limping pace again, Tack sat atop his archery nest set onto the main caravan, looking out at the sands and desert around him. He thumbed his bow string as he absentmindedly wiped the brains and blood from his arrows. He closed his eyes and saw woods, green and plush, rushing past him as he ran. He could feel the rough bark beneath his feet as he ran the tops of the trees. Branches jutted out to meet him and he leapt over them or ducked under. At his dead sprint he fired arrows, cutting down anything that threatened him or his Pack. He leapt the distance from tree to tree and kept running.

The dry wind of the desert smacked him in the face and he opened his eyes. Not a tree for hundreds of miles. No bark. No branches. No family. No friends. They were all gone. His entire life was behind him, years behind him, and growing more distant every day.

He turned his mind from it and reached for his hat. It was a wide hat, round and woven of reeds and grasses. It spread out from his crown covering his shoulders and much of his back. The hat was cool from the linen packed within it that retained water. It rose to a point and tied under the chin. Tack felt hidden within its shadow. He felt safe from discovery. For he knew that out there somewhere, they were still looking for him, and they would not let up. Never would they let him wander alone. Did he love them for that, or hate them? Tack was not sure, but he could not let them find him. His guilt was too great.

The blistering day died and its corpse cooled into cold night. Tack climbed from his cart as the wagons stopped and tents came out. He saw to the prisoner and found him a spot under the cart where the heat of the sand would keep him warm for the first half of the night. He joined his new family and ate.

He took first watch and sat again on his perch, staring off into the sands for any sign of brigands. They had a prisoner. This was a risk. Whese had never taken prisoners before Tack joined up. If the bandits were still out there, they would be coming to free their comrade. Tack knew the risks and dared not let his guard down. When the trader’s golden moon rose to its highest prominence, he was relieved and went to his tent. As he passed Whese’s door, he fired an arrow at it. He reached his tent before the door crept open and Tesea slipped out. She came to him and he ducked into his tent.

The other guards were bunked two or three in a tent but Tack got his own. A perk of being the deadliest warrior of the group. He untied his hat and dropped it to the floor. He dropped to his bed and stretched out on the ground. In moments Tesea snuck in and curled up beside him.

He liked the smell of dry sweat and sage that came off her. It was a scent he had grown to love, even though he knew he did not love her. “Will you make love to me tonight, Tack?”

He had heard her father Whese instructing her to get pregnant from Tack as soon as she could. Whese was trying to ensure Tack would never leave him. But Tack had never made love to the girl. Too many risks. And he was sure she did not love him the way he wanted her to. Would she leave her father if he asked her to? When they came looking for him and were on his trail, would she drop this life and come with him on the road? He was almost sure she would not. And the shadow of another girl still danced in his mind. He wrapped arms around the girl who shared his bed and he grunted. He would feign sleep. She would fight to wake him, but he needed to slip by her advances again tonight.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think about his father.

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