Chapter 7
Being temporarily stunned by the bright flash and the loud bang, the animal mounts panicked. They roared and bucked, throwing the riders off their backs. Then, they fled into the woods noisily.
The 02 warriors stumbled around in the dusk, knocking into each other while cursing loudly. They pulled their weapons out while shaking their heads and rubbing their eyes in loud growls. Some of them fell down clumsily in struggles while trying to pull their weapons.
Clarke dashed towards them while firing her gun at them. The warriors fussed furiously as they fought back clumsily. One of the warriors knocked her down with a heavy blow on her nose, before he straddled her.
Clarke struggled while squinting hard at those stars floating in her vision. Blood gushed out in her nose, clogging up her throat, making her feel like she was drinking liquid rust. She tried to shoot him but he knocked her gun away.
Under the light of the torches and twin moons, she finally had a good look at the attacker. He gave her a wide, wicked grin. His teeth were filed into sharp, pointy shape and he was wearing a raw animal hide. The hide was smudged by blood. In the contrast between the shadows of the night and the light from the moon, he looked more like a beast than a human being.
She could smell him. It was a mixed odor of blood, dirt, and filth. It upset her stomach, and she almost puked.
She struggled against him frantically, kicking and punching, but she couldn't break free. She pulled out her combat knife and thrust it at him. He chuckled and grabbed her wrist. He tightened his fingers around it and squeezed it until Clarke cried out in pain and dropped the knife.
He stuck his tongue out slowly and licked his lips. The long scar on his left cheek crooked as if it was about to burst open.
"Dison laik ain (this one's mine)," he told the others as he tapped the tip of his blade on Clarke's nose.
The others chuckled along with him, after they had made sure that there was no backup forces coming for Clarke. They all came to her side and grinned at her.
After she had successfully thrown a punch into his arm, the other warriors all laughed. One of them came closer and pinned her arms down to the ground, and another held her legs down.
The one who straddled her grinned at her growled and spat into his face, before she launched her head at him. She hit his nose with her forehead, and he cursed in rage.
He pulled out a short dagger, before he turned to his people and said something in Trigedasleng. They all giggled while he chuckled, their voices thick of bloodthirst.
Suddenly, his chuckles stopped. He paused there and slowly lowered his head. He looked down at his chest, where an arrowhead had just pierced out.
He raised his eyebrows and stared at his dribbling blood, unable to believe what had just happened. He inhaled hard for a few times, before he mumbled and fell down.
The others stopped laughing when they realized that he was dead for real. They raised their weapons in murmurs and looked around, searching for the shooter.
Clarke took the chance to pulled her legs free. She threw her heels into the face of the man who had been holding her legs and kicked him away. The one who held her arms tried to keep her still and she fought against him. Suddenly, he loosened his grip and died from an arrow in his throat.
Glancing at where the arrows were coming from, Clarke's heart suddenly fluttered heavily as if it was about to give out. The sound of it slammed against her eardrums, masking every other sound around her.
While the 02 warriors were too busy deciding whether they should go after the shooter first, Clarke picked up her gun and ran to hide behind a row of bushes.
She loaded her gun and killed two of them while Lexa took down three.
The rest of them yelled furiously and divided into two groups. One came after Clarke and the other approached the patch of trees among which Lexa was hiding.
Clarke clenched her teeth and forced her arms to stay in position as she fired her gun at those who ran towards her. She shot one in the head, two in the chest and stomach. The fourth one almost came too close, but after getting one bullet in his thigh, he stopped there.
He stared at her for a second or two with fear in his eyes. Then, he glanced at her raised gun. He swallowed hard at it, before he turned around and ran away.
She knew she should kill him, but she couldn't pull the trigger at someone who was fleeing. As she was hesitating, he quickly disappeared in the woods, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
She turned around and aimed at those who were searching for Lexa. She killed them after firing at them repeatedly.
She stood there with a defensive stance as she looked around cautiously. After seeing none, she waited for Lexa to come down.
The brunette didn't show up, though, and Clarke rushed to the tree she was in and called her name.
She heard struggles in the tree. Warm blood fell down on her raised face, followed by a body. It almost knocked her down.
The bloody body made her heart stop, but when she realized that it was one of the 02 guys instead of Lexa, she let out a deep breath.
Lexa got down afterwards with her sword in her hand. It was drenched in blood, and so was the front side of her armor. Several drops of fresh blood decorated her face, making the flames in her light eyes even brighter.
"Are your hurt?" Clarke asked her as she lowered her gun.
Lexa shook her head and wiped her blade clean on the dead man's clothes. She sheathed her blade and started to collect her arrows from the dead bodies.
"We were lucky," she said after having gathered all the arrows. "These Reapers aren't well trained. New recruits perhaps. Otherwise we'd be dead already."
"Reapers?" Clarke frowned as she clenched her hands. They were shaking too hard for the adrenaline spikes she had just had.
Lexa didn't answer her, and Clarke shook her head while walking to the captives.
Getting down on one of her knees, she untied the prisoners one by one. Her heart sank heavily when she found out that more than half of them had already died. There were two of them who had probably been dead for a while, and their bodies had already started to decompose.
She sighed and dragged the alive ones away from the device. She flipped them around and examined those in 03 army uniform first.
Two of them were 03 soldiers. The front side of their uniform had been practically shredded because they had been dragged along on the ground.
One of them had a swollen wound on his leg. Clarke figured that he might have something lodged in his leg, but she couldn't be sure. She checked his name tag, but it had been torn off already.
When she placed her hand on his forehead to see how high a fever he was running, he opened his eyes slowly. After taking a glance at her army uniform, he seemed to have found some relief.
"W-water," he begged. His shaky voice barely bubbled through his throat. Licking his lips, he reached for the water bottle that Clarke had carried on her belt.
Clarke opened the bottle and moved it closer to him. He gulped some water along with a fever reducing pill that Clarke had given him.
He tried to hold the bottle himself, but his nailless fingers were all bloody and shaky. When he saw Lexa appear beside Clarke, terror filled his eyes. He flinched and opened his mouth, squeezing some sounds through his throat. Clarke calmed him down by telling him that he was safe now, and then he moved back a little while staring at Lexa closely.
Clarke checked on the other soldier. It was a woman, and she was unconscious. She, too, had lost all her fingernails. Her hands were bloody too, with pieces of flesh gone because when being dragged she was digging her hands into the ground too hard. While she didn't have any major wounds on her, she seemed to be very weak.
Clarke sighed and shook her head. As she moved to check on the others, she was surprised to find out that they were 02 warriors.
"I didn't know your people would...torture each other," she said to Lexa.
"I believe I have made it clear that these men are not my people," Lexa told her calmly, though Clarke noticed a stream of anger in her voice when she mentioned "these people".
"So not only do you fight us, you fight each other too?"
Lexa snorted. Instead of answering Clarke's question, she simply said "I'm gonna go find the mounts" before she turned around and disappeared in the woods.
Clarke rolled her eyes, and then lowered her head and checked the 02 warrior in front of her. He was a big guy with a shaved, tattooed head. There was a long, deep laceration on his back. It had been infected, with thick, bloody fluid oozing out.
She offered him some water, but he spat it back into her face furiously when he realized that Clarke was wearing an 03 army uniform. He grabbed her collar and shoved her to the ground.
"Let her go," Lexa, who had just come back with two mounts, ordered him.
Surprised to hear her voice, he turned to look at her. "Heda…?" He murmured after taking a good look at her face underneath the moonlight.
"Let her go, Lincoln. She's with me," Lexa explained to him simply.
The man, Lincoln, nodded humbly and let Clarke go, after giving Clarke a hateful stare.
"Good, you two know each other. Maybe you could tell him that it's not polite to spit on people's face," Clarke drawled and went to check on the last two survivors.
Their conditions were much worse, for they had been dragged along on the ground for much longer. The flesh on their knees, elbows and forearms were almost completely gone. Clarke could even see their bones through some spots.
She sighed, and offered one of them a painkiller. He refused by shaking his head, before he looked at Lexa.
Lexa nodded at him. She got down on one knee and took out a leather pouch. She laid it on the ground and pulled a small vial out.
She poured a pinch of the content into the injured man's mouth, and he thanked her with a nod. Then, he let out a deep breath and lay back with his eyes closed.
"What is that?" Clarke asked.
"Pain killer?" Lexa shrugged and put the pouch back. She went to the last survivor's side and grabbed his arm and his shoulder to flip him over.
A strong, foul smell made Clarke hold her had come from that big tear on his lower abdomen. It was hard to tell if it had been caused by a weapon or an animal, because it was heavily infected. Yellow liquid leaked out from the red, swollen flesh, where a group of maggots happily nested inside.
He was barely conscious, but when he saw Lexa's face through his black, swollen eyes, he seemed to have found hope. "Heda..." that word slipped out from his cracked lips.
Lexa stared into his eyes calmly. He pulled his lip into a smile and whispered something to her incoherently.
Lexa nodded at him, and he nodded back. Clarke frowned when she noticed that suddenly the fear and pain in his eyes were gone.
Lexa kneeled beside him while pulling her dagger out. She placed the tip of it above his chest and gazed into his eyes.
"Whoa!" Clarke exclaimed as she grabbed Lexa's arm in reflex.
Lexa turned to look at her. "Clarke, if you can save him, do it now. Otherwise you need to step back and turn away," she said with her usual, indifferent voice.
Clarke bit her lips and slowly let go of Lexa's arm. When Lexa told the man "yu gonplei ste odon", she stepped back, but instead of turning away she numbly watched Lexa plunge that blade into the man's chest.
After the man stopped moving, Lexa pulled her dagger out and wiped it clean quietly. Then, she turned to Clarke and asked, "I only found 11 bodies. Has anyone got away?"
"Ummm...what?" Clarked frowned.
"The enemies," Lexa explained. "There were 12 of them, but I only found 11 bodies. Did anyone get away?"
"Ummm...yeah, I think one of them ran away, why?" Clarke asked.
Lexa sighed. "We must leave now," she announced, and Lincoln immediately stood up.
"You must be a fool to have let a reaper get away," he hissed at Clarke while getting the two mounts.
Clarke rolled her eyes. "One of them got away, big deal."
"You wouldn't think that when an army of reapers comes after us after he informs them about our location," Lexa told her as she and Lincoln put the badly injured 02 warrior on the mount's back.
Lincoln got up afterwards. He struggled to hold the rein and almost slipped off. Clenching his teeth, he pushed his feet into the stirrups and grabbed the rein firmly.
Lexa got on the other one and pulled Clarke up. She kicked the mount's stomach with her heel and the animal swiftly leaped forward.
"Whoa! Wait a second!" Clarke exclaimed as she pulled on the rein hard to stop the mount. It stopped abruptly, almost throwing both of them off.
Clarke jumped off before Lexa could stop her. She ran to the two 03 soldiers and said, "either we take them with us, or you'll have to leave without me."
"If you don't leave now, the reapers will catch you," Lexa told her impatiently.
"Then you can suck it because you won't have enough time to find another person to help you with your damn rescue mission," Clarke told her. "I am not leaving without them."
Lexa growled. She turned her face sideways and listened, before she said, "fine, if you want to slow the mounts down by putting more weight on them, go ahead."
"Well we might be able to take off sooner if one of you could actually help me," Clarke argued breathlessly as she dragged the two soldiers over. She lifted the woman up, and Lincoln put her on his mount.
Lexa got off and helped her carry the man into her mount. "Hurry," she demanded as she held Clarke by her waist and pulled her to sit in front of her.
"Who are these people exactly? Why are you so afraid of them?" Clarke asked curiously.
"You may think that we are the same, Clarke, but the reapers are nothing but ruthless monsters. Even animals are better than them," Lexa told her as she gave her mount a kick on the side.
The mount galloped forward, just in time to get away from a flying boomerang. Lexa took down her crossbow and shot an 02 warrior who emerged from the shadows of the trees.
She kicked the mount again, and it leaped over a patch of shrubs and dashed forward.
Clarke pulled her gun out and turned her torso to fire at the enemies. She could hardly aim, though, when she was moving too fast.
Arrows and darts rained down. Their mount got hit by an arrow, and it furiously roared. Waving its tail like a flail, it knocked away a few enemies that had gotten too close before it leaped over a small creek.
Clarke could hear the enemies fussing and growling loudly in Trigedasleng. Some of them jumped out from the trees and attacked her and Lexa, but the brunette pulled her sword out and killed them.
Slowly, the enemies fell behind. Most of them eventually gave up stopped pursuing. A few persistent ones continued chasing after them, but they couldn't outrun the mounts and they got thrown far behind.
The mounts ran through the woods and into a small piece of open land in front of the rolling hills. They slowed down. Exhausted, they started to wander along a winding road hiding among the tall grass while searching for food.
The mounts purred. Huge puffs of breath left their big noses as they lowered their heads and pulled the newly grown grass off with their teeth.
The leaves of the trees whispered along with the night wind, so did the tall grass. The 02s were nowhere to be seen, and everything seemed to be quiet and peaceful underneath the moonlight.
Clarke had finally let out that breath she had been holding. She petted the mount, and it shook its head impatiently while eating.
It was then that she noticed Lexa's weight on her shoulder. The brunette leaned against her, with her face buried in her shoulder.
Clarke frowned. She raised her shoulder, hoping that Lexa could take the hint, but the brunette seemed to have pressed her body harder against her after that.
"Umm...I think it's probably the time for us to get off and figure out what to do next."
Lexa didn't say anything, and Clarke turned around to take a look. As she pulled her shoulder forward, Lexa's body tilted to the side and fell off the mount languishly.
Clarke immediately jumped off. After seeing that Lexa had her eyes closed, she tapped her face and shook her, but Lexa wouldn't wake up. Short, weak breath left her nose irregularly, and her pulse was dangerously shallow and rapid.
Clarke checked her for injuries immediately, but found no arrows nor bleeding wounds on her. Though, she did noticed that every single piece of Lexa's muscles seemed to be pulling tight.
After flipping the brunette over, she had finally found a small dart lodged in her left ankle.
Clarke pulled that dark out and stared at its tail which was made from a few grey feathers. "Oh, no..." she murmured, as the memory of her people being killed by those poisonous darts came to her.
In panic, she checked Lexa's pulse again. Her blood ran cold when she couldn't feel anything under her trembling fingers.
She swallowed hard and held her breath, before she unlatched Lexa's chest piece and pressed her ear against the brunette's chest. She closed her eyes and prayed, before she captured that weak flutter under Lexa's ribs.
A loud groan from Lincoln spooked her. She jolted as she turned to take a look at him while pulling her gun out.
The man was practically lying on his stomach on top of his mount. His breath was heavy and his eyes were barely open. He had one arrow under his shoulder blade and another in his lower back.
He groaned again, before he rolled off his mount. For a few seconds, he just lay there, gasping. Then, he saw Lexa lying in front of Clarke unconscious. He curse loudly and rushed to her side, half crawling half running.
Shoving Clarke away from Lexa, he examined her himself. Then, he looked around while mumbling something. When he saw the dart in Clarke's hand, he growled and yanked it away.
He held the dart in his hand and examined it closely, almost dropping it since his hands were shaking too hard from the pain.
He hurled it at a vulture who were standing nearby staring at Lexa hungrily. The bird squeaked and expanded its wings. Before it took off, it twitched and fell. It died in seconds, with bloody foam coming out from its mouth.
Lincoln went to examine the bird. Then, he slammed his fist against the ground and closed his eyes in a sigh.
"W-what is it? It's a poison, right? I've seen that before...do you know what type of poison it is?" Clarke asked him.
He shot her a cold stare, before he went to Lexa's side again. There was nothing but a look of despair in his eyes. He could barely support himself but he still forced himself to keep his body straight.
"Do you what kind of poison it is? Do you know how to treat it?" Clarke continued, and earned an angry look from Lincoln.
He took another look at Lexa's face, before he said, "there is no cure. She's going to die."
Clarke opened her mouth. Her throat had suddenly gone dry. She cleared it for a few times, before she clenched her cold sweat covered fingers and said, "no...no she'd not."
She nervously glanced at Lexa, and then she turned back to Lincoln. "I've seen how this poison kills. Those people...they died in less than a minute. If it could kill her, she would have been dead already. Besides, people survive from lethal poison all the time. She umm...maybe she could survive. Yeah, she is going to survive."
Lincoln shook his head. He tried to hide the deep sorrow in his eyes, but he couldn't. "She won't," he said firmly. "No one survives this poison."
"She will," Clarke said firmly while wondering how certain she actually was. She wondered if she said that solely because that was what she wanted to believe. "She will," she repeated.
Lincoln stared at her for a while. Then he raised his head and gazed at the twin moons. He mumbled something in Trigedasleng while struggling to move Lexa into the moonlight.
That simple task seemed to have drained him. He collapsed, gasping hard. Clarke asked if he needed any help, but he just shook his head.
"If you have time, 03 girl, pray," he told her. "Pray to the twin Goddess. If they hear us, they will hide the light of her soul from the Death."
Then, he stopped talking and stared into the moons while murmuring something softly, leaving Clarke standing there with a dangling heart.
Thelonious Jaha raised from his medical pod when the "guest" light blinked beside him.
He was expecting the droids who would bring him his lunch, but instead, he got a visitor - a long haired woman in immaculate business suit.
"Lorelei Tsing," he greeted her, a little surprised. He moved himself over to the table in the corner of his patient room and sat down, before he gave her a smile.
"Thelonious," the woman nodded at him, smiling back. "You look good."
"Well, still a little bit sore," Jaha told her as he offered her the other chair. "Nice to see you here. Are you here for your NF doctor alliance program?"
"Sort of," the woman answered. "Mr. Secretary sent me. He wanted me to pay you a visit in case your doctors need a second opinion. I told him that Dr. Griffin is one of the best doctors in the federation, but he insisted, so here I am."
Jaha nodded. "I am doing well. In fact, Abby said that I might be able to go home in a couple of days."
"Will you be having more physical therapy, though?" Lorelei asked.
Jana nodded. "I assume I'd be visiting physical therapists for a while," he said, "but I'm doing great."
"That's good to hear," Lorelei smiled at him. "When the committee heard that you were injured, they were deeply worried. Some of them were concerned that you might no longer be able to run a planet, you know, but it's such a relief that you are looking good. You are the pivot of the 03 Council, Thelonious."
"Well you tell Mr. Secretary that I'll be back in my office in no time," Jaha said.
"Do you think you can handle all the work while going through all kinds of therapy? I mean, you seem to have a very divided Council. I bet it's hard to pull things together, huh?"
"People have different opinions over different things. We argue. We discuss. We agree to disagree. My job is to make sure that they get along and that things get done in the end."
Lorelei curled her lips as she stared at Jaha. "It has come to the Committee's attention that the discussion of what to with the war between the 02 and 03 in your Council is not moving forward."
"Well we've had a few setbacks recently, but we are working towards an agreement."
"An impeachment voting doesn't really sound like working towards an agreement, Thelonious. Two planets are at war, and people are dying, the last thing you want is to have your Council wasting precious time on some personal feud."
"I absolutely understand that," Jaha nodded. "I'll...make sure that it never happens again."
Lorelei pulled her lips into a big smile at Jaha. She looked around at everything in the room, before she turned back to him. "Your term ends at the end of the year? Or is it the beginning of the next year?"
"It ends on the last day of the fifth month next year," Jaha told her.
"It's about a year away," Lorelei said.
"It is," Jaha nodded.
"So, have you planned on what to do after you move out from the Chancellor's mansion?" Lorelei asked.
"Probably spend more time on gardening, and with my family," Jaha answered.
"Sounds fun," Lorelei told him. "No plans for running for a higher office? Like maybe an NF Committee member?"
Jaha shook his head. "Nah, I think I'm good. I might write a book or two."
"Oh, really? That's nice. What do you think you'd include in your book?"
"Things that happened to me during my term, I assume."
"So...let's say that you are writing your book, how would you describe your legacy as a Chancellor, Thelonious?"
"What do you mean?" Jaha frowned.
"Well, your legacy, as in something significant that you've accomplished or created when being a Chancellor. For example, the previous Chancellor of 03, made the Treaty deal happen. The Treaty between 02 and 03 was his legacy. The next Chancellor, well I'm not entirely sure what his or her legacy would be, but if I have to take a wild guess, I'd say that it would be ending the war, because it's about time but you, as the current Chancellor, are not making it happen."
"Ending a war isn't that simple, Lorelei," Jaha argued. "Once everything's ready, I'll push for another peace talk."
"Do you think your Council would allow another peace talk? Do you think the majority would back you up?"
Jaha went quiet. "I think I can get enough votes on another peace talk," he eventually said.
"I'm sure you can, but maybe the first thing to do for you, is to have a less divided Council. You need people who can get things done. You don't need idealists who spend all their time painting a big, pretty picture."
Jaha frowned. "What are you implying?"
"I am trying to tell you that you need to get your Council together. Like...if it's truly divided, all you need to do is to make a decision on which side to keep."
"Are you asking me to get rid of some of my Council members?"
"I am not asking you to do anything, Thelonious. I'm just simply reminding you that sometimes difficult decisions have to be made before anything can move forward. If you really want to accomplish anything, you'll need a Council where people can agree with each other," Lorelei said.
She leaned in and tapped the back of Jaha's hand gently. "Thelonious, it's time to think about your planet's future, and of course your future too. 50, 100 years from now, when people talk about you, do you really want to be the Chancellor who couldn't even pull his Council together? Or, you can be the Chancellor who pulls his Council together and end the war between two planets."
"I'm not sure if I really understand you," Jaha told her after a long pause.
Lorelei smiled. "I think you do, Thelonious. I think you do," she said before she left.
