The Outcast and the Survivor: Chapter Three

The Outcast and the Survivor

  Written by Trevor A. A. Evans

  Text Copyright © 2015 by Trevor A. A. Evans

  Published by Thirteen Crossroads Publishing

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation in articles and reviews.

  www.thirteencrossroads.com

  Preface

  The story that follows is part of a chapter-series, The Outcast and the Survivor. It has been made available on Kindle and Nook as a convenience, since it is available free of charge directly on the Thirteen Crossroads Publishing website. The story will continue with a new chapter being released each month until the last chapter is published in December 2017.

  Chapter Three

  “Why don’t you have your watch?” the man grumbles, removing the steel of his blade from my neck and walking away from me.

  “How do you know about that?” I ask confused.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he says as he lifts the hand still holding the blade to rub his eyes and takes a deep breath. “What matters is you not doing anything else to get us killed. You’re lucky I still managed to find you.”

  “Lucky?” I yell. “You put a knife to my throat. I was doing just fine there by myself.”

  He starts to chuckle.

  “If you think that, then you’re even more naïve than I expected. He would have used you, manipulated you. Trust me, death would have been a blessing compared to that.”

  As I stop arguing and look away, the Necromancer’s warning comes to mind. That things are not as they seem. I know nothing about the man in front of me except that he threatened to kill me and apparently meant it. I have little reason to trust him, except perhaps that he somehow knew I was coming and was searching for me.

  He walks a few steps away and stares off into the mist, which has thinned out as we’ve gotten lower. We had just started down a gradual slope when he judged it safe to release me from his grip. He turns around after a second, looking back at me but not saying anything. The skin on his face is rough and slightly wrinkled around his eyes, though his brownish-blonde hair, which hangs over his forehead and trails in long curls behind his ears, makes him seem youthful despite some grey. Scruff shoots out around his neck, cheeks, and mouth, but it is short and balanced, suggesting that he tries to keep it kempt.

  His outfit, too, seems disorderly yet clean. He wears a black brimmed hat with a dark coat and vest, which cover a grey cloth shirt. The coat hangs open, while the vest is held together with small metal buttons that go down its center and cling tightly to his body. The shirt is tucked into dark pants, ones made of a rough, scratchy-looking material. A leather belt wraps around it at the waist and holds a sheathe, inside of which is a small metal object about the length of a dagger with a bent handle. It is thick and round at its bottom, and I stare at it for a moment trying to figure out just what it contains.

  “What are you gawking at?” the man says annoyed.

  “For someone who’s been trying to find me, you don’t act too thrilled that I’m here,” I infer.

  “That’s because I’m not,” he shoots back, “and the sooner you realize that, the better we’ll get along.”

  “Then why did you come to get me?”

  “Because there are people who actually care that you make it out of here alive. My role is simply to get you to them, or rather, what you have to them. If I can do that, then hopefully we won’t have to deal with each other anymore.”

  Although I’m somewhat bothered by his rude demeanor, I find something about his brusqueness insincere, as though he is a lot less dislikable than what he’s putting off. Maybe this is how he deals with everyone. The thought makes me decide to be patient with him instead of returning his disdain.

  “Is one of the people named Eliana?” I ask.

  “Never heard the name before, but that doesn’t mean no. People go by lots of different names, especially in Sanctuary.”

  “Sanctuary?”

  “That’s where I’m to take you. It’s a treacherous journey, one you better be able to handle.”

  “I’ve made it this far,” I remind him, not that he knows all that took place in the mountains and caves.

  He doesn’t respond. Instead, he eyes my pack, which remains over my shoulder, and walks over to me. When he tries to grab at it, I pull back.

  “What are doing?” I say as I push his arm away.

  “I just want to make sure that you have it, and see what else you’ve got. I ran out of food days ago and have been scrounging for what I could. You sure took your sweet time getting here.”

  “Fine,” I respond, feeling somewhat guilty now that I know that my seven-day wait above Kalepo meant him nearly starving to death.

  I remove the animal-skin pouch before handing him the rest.

  “Take whatever you want, but I keep this until I find Eliana.”

  “I can live with that,” he says, “but could you do me a favor and try to make your requests with a little less condescension, your highness. Most people down here won’t care who you are, and those who do… well, you’ll want to avoid them.”

  Although his tone is starting to get under my skin, I ignore it and focus more on trying to ground myself in this strange land I now find myself in.

  “What exactly is this place?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, but those of us unlucky enough to find ourselves here are stuck whether we like it or not.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “If you don’t know, then I’d rather not be the one to explain it to you. The people at Sanctuary can do that just fine.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Listen, I’m tired, and we don’t have the time for me to give you a history lesson. We need to get down to the lower plains by nightfall so that we can prepare a safe place to rest while there’s still light. The way I figure it, there’s barely enough food in here for us to make it to Sanctuary, and the less time we spend talking, the more I can focus on keeping us safe so that you can get your answers and I can get what I came for.”

  “And that is—”

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” he interrupts.

  With that, our conversation ends. He returns my pack to me, and I promptly place the pouch back inside and tie it shut. Once I look up again, he is already heading further down the hill. I run to catch up.

  “My name is Kaela,” I tell him, thinking that maybe I’ll be able to get him to warm up and act a little less unpleasant, but the look he returns to me suggests that it’s not going to work.

  “I know, I just don’t care,” he says dryly.

  “Well what should I call you?” I persist.

  “Whatever you want to,” he responds, with less attitude this time. “All you need to know about me is that I’m a survivor.”

  “I’ve met the Necromancer and now the Survivor,” I say frustrated. “Does anyone have a real name down here?”

  The faint traces of a grin form on the corners of his mouth in response to my discouraged cry, but if he thinks he can stifle me with just a few harsh words, he’s mistaken. I’m going to eventually get through to him.

  “You can call me Wade,” he says, surprising me.

  “Is that your name?” I ask a bit unsure since I’ve never heard of anyone going by anything even remotely like that.

  “No, but I’ve always liked the sound of it.”

  We walk in silence for a while after that until we eventually break through the fog. What I see then is something I had not expected. Light. Not all around me, but in the distanc
e, pouring in through a hole in the mist almost like a waterfall.

  The area beneath it is filled with all sorts of creatures, some of them so gigantic that they seem frightening even from afar. Other creatures in the regions outside of the light’s border seem drawn toward it, heading in its direction. That is not to say that the land beyond the pillar of light is completely dark. Rather, the light from the pillar reflects back off of the mist, creating an orange and red aura reminiscent of clouds floating around a setting sun.

  I stop in complete awe of the extraordinary world that has been hidden from me for so long.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” Wade says in a surprisingly pleasant voice.

  He doesn’t let me enjoy it for long, however, and we continue downward a short moment later. As we descend, my attention shifts to the steep, cliff-covered mountainside, which I presume to be to our east since my guess is that I exited the mountains on their western slopes. They go up for miles from their base, gradually fading back into the mist.

  I try asking Wade questions about where we are and where we are going, but he mostly ignores me or gives brief, vague answers. Perhaps he thinks this will deter me, but I continue to barrage him with questions in hopes of breaking him down. Yet, true to his word, he says very little at all.

  It makes me feel like I am a child, one too young to explain things to. That’s how the people at the temple treated me for a long time, but at some point, they opened up. I don’t know if it was my persistence or simply that they eventually deemed me old enough to speak to like an adult, but whatever it