“You know more about the Catrions and the Catrion war than anyone else it would be safe for me to ask.” I pleaded. “Just tell me how you would do it if you were to try?”
“What do you mean ‘if’?” Nellya eyed me suspiciously. “Illegal or not, I’m going to confront the Catrions. I have to know if what they say about my mother is true.”
I’d been spending time with Nellya because Alaric was still fuming a week later about the predicament I’d forced him into during that Monday morning class. He used his idea on how I could prove myself to torment me; if I didn’t know he was capable of such treachery regardless, I would’ve thought it was a cruel game of vengeance. Since Alaric refused to explain, I searched elsewhere. Nellya had been the obvious solution.
“So how would you find them?” I asked from the edge of Nellya’s neatly made bed.
Nellya continued cleaning her room; for the most part it was clean except for the random piles of literature about the Catrions. Leaning next to the foot of her bed was a particularly tall stack of books. On top of it was a paperback titled “The Catrion Way of Love, by Mr. and Mrs. Charles McLeod.”
“Find them?” She threw her head back and laughed. “Don’t you listen at all in school? There are two Catrion penal colonies. One is a scientific institution on Mars and the other is in the Sahara Desert here on Earth!”
“So could I walk to the one on Earth?” I questioned stupidly.
“No, you’d probably have to go to space and come down over Africa, unless you could operate the left over equipment from before the war.” She looked at the book in my hands. “The best way is through space; most of the old vehicles are probably nonfunctional.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. I’d gotten no where in my efforts; Alaric couldn’t travel by space, not without a license and a ship. My only guess was he was bluffing or had met a shady trader who could ferry him to Africa. Either way, I still had to know.
I got up, replaced the book on the stack, and left. My father had offered to take me on a scavenging expedition the next day, so I figured I should get home to rest up. I still needed to pack a few things too, and run one last errand. I couldn’t forget to do that.
Fortunately, the errand wasn’t difficult. Before I went home, I had to find Victor and ask him if he wanted to come. Actually, my father hoped he would because he was pretty skilled when it came to mechanical things. It didn’t hurt that his family also owned two horses and a cart.
My dad hoped to find some items worth trading with either other villages or people in space. He wanted to help his family get a little monetary income, instead of the typical bartered goods, so my mother and I could have nice things from places other than our village. We were fine with what we had, but he insisted we should at least have credits saved. Honestly, I felt it was an attempt to escape the leaky sink he hadn’t been able to fix for the past week.
Most others wouldn’t have been able to find Victor, including his own mother, but I knew where he was. He always relaxed on the smooth rocks of what was an island before, but the trick was finding it.
Even with my knowledge of the outcropping, I had to walk the shore of Lake Wannapeg for half an hour to spot the island. That’s what it was when I found it. I could’ve screamed Victor’s name, but going to him typically worked better.
Hence, I waded out in the frigid water across the submerged bridge. The water was chilly even though it was late summer, but it might also have been cold because my body hadn’t expected to enter the water. Whatever the reason treading waist-deep sent shivers down my spine.
Victor was exactly where I’d predicted he would be. He was sleeping so I nudged him with the toe of my muddy moccasin. Watching him jerk into a sitting position was funny enough for me to let out a chuckle.
“You’re all wet.” His sleepy brain didn’t understand why. “Why are you all wet?”
I shrugged; I enjoyed taking advantage of his drowsy stupor. “I’m not sure, I think it rained or something.”
“N-no it didn’t, because I’d be wet too!”
“You’re so smart!” I teased.
He rubbed his eyes and I sat down next to him to remove the sharp pebbles from my shoes. It took him a few minutes to wake up, which in itself was amusing.
When he finally cleared his head of the fading euphoria of his midday nap, he spoke again. “What did you need?”
I explained the situation to him, mentioned all the technical details, and prayed he would comply. He said he would be delighted to go with me. That was how he put it; he’d be delighted to go with me. Not with my father, or to help out, or to miss school, or even to find something worthwhile, but to be with me.
“Here, let me help you up.” Victor offered, standing up first. I hadn’t seen the evil glint in his eye until it was too late to stop his mischief.
Victor snapped the arm he’d offered me outward, essentially throwing me headfirst into the water. I scrambled to grab him, but he had been too quick, at least for my hands. With an impossible speed, my tail coiled around both his bare ankles and dragged him in with me.
Amidst our splashing about, Victor laughed and said I hadn’t played fair. He claimed there was no way for him to dodge my tail. My answer was to throw water in his face.
Playing with Victor in the water was so much fun I forgot I’d wanted to get home. We swam for two hours at least before climbing out, back onto his hiding spot. Exhausted, we laid there, still carrying on, until the sun was drooping beneath the tree tops. By then, we both realized how much trouble we could be in, and darted back to the village.
Where our paths split, Victor yelled a hurried farewell and a promise to see me early the next day. I shouted a similar message; deep down. I ceded that had been the best day I’d had in a while.
Fortunately, my parents were fine with how late I got home, provided I completed all my chores, packed for the trip, and got to bed at a decent hour. Doing everything, but I managed to do it all and hit the sack tired, but not so much I couldn’t anticipate the next day.
If my father hadn’t woken me, I would’ve slept past the time we were supposed to leave. I was glad he did though, because the amount of stuff he was taking meant I hadn’t I hadn’t packed nearly enough. New to me was the fact this trip was going further away than any other we‘d been on.
Because of the destination, my father ordered me to pack a week of clothing, and to my surprise, arm myself. I threw my bags upstairs; while he and Victor prepared the cart, I was determined to grab a shower.
It was a fast one, but I made up for the time not wasted by dawdling in my bedroom. First and foremost, I had to find clothes to wear, but I also needed to gather my armaments from wherever they were. Finding my bow was easy; I kept it in a nook next to my desk. Finding the arrows that went with it weren’t so conspicuous. After a lot of searching, they turned up in the back of my closet, as did a sword from the Catrion war.
Draping the arrows and bow over my shoulder, I unsheathed the wicked blade. According to my father when I got the blade for Christmas, the curved cutting end contoured to the curves on a Catrion for optimum damage. The black metal wasn’t actually metal at all, but carbon molecules rolled into cylindrical structures. The result was a lightweight, yet immensely strong black blade with the sheen and hardness of a diamond. Supposedly the thin scimitar’s blade would never dull because of the quantum physics used in its creation.
Eventually, I was ready to leave, so I marched outside and sat cross-legged in the back of the cart. Victor, upon tossing the last duffel on the cart, joined me. He had his brother’s rifle over his shoulder, and two extra drum magazines for the rifle; one probably would’ve been plenty, but being over prepared couldn’t be terribly bad.
My father was the most prepared of any of us. He laid a rifle, just like Victor’s, in the cart; he had a satchel of spare magazines slung over his shoulder. Secured to the back of his belt were two swords, different for a change than their cousins. The two swords weren’t made of carbon but rather steel. They were Japanese katanas, one long and one short. Closer to his front, was a scimitar from the Catrion war. In a leg holster, he had a pistol, like the ones the military used to stun humans. Lastly, he had a compound bow, though not quite as compounded as mine, over his shoulder. If I didn’t know what he wore when going to war, I’d think he was going to war; when going to war, he wore all that, plus a uniform that let him teleport.
My father forced the horses to move and we were off.
“Why do we have to be armed?” I asked, feeling kind of ignorant with Victor giving me the impression he knew beforehand. I didn’t mind toting around my bow and sword, but it seemed like an unnecessary precaution; every scavenging expedition I’d ever been on, we encountered hardly anyone, and those whom we did normally shied away from us.
“We’re traveling at least a day’s journey out of the village.” My father began. “I don’t think we’ll be in any danger until we head back. It’s then I expect to meet either bandits or nomadic tribes, but whichever we meet will be violent.” I knew my father was worried, but the way he put it sounded exciting. I wondered if we really would encounter that sort of people. “I’m hoping our level of security will deter them even before they attack, but if a tribe attacks, they’ll only be more provoked.”
Mr. Dabahov had told me stories about the tribal nomads. They were refugees from the war who refused to believe they could be helped by humanity. Some reasoned the tribes feared being neglected and so they tried to compensate for their paranoia by aggressively seizing what they needed to survive. Others just said they were loony; driven to insanity by the ghastly sights they’d seen during the Catrion War. The children at school told horror stories about them; that they spoke in screeching war cries and dined on strong liquor and helpless babies. Having never met them, I didn’t know what they were like, but I wasn’t all that concerned either; if everything they were made up to were true, I’d fear them that much more. If they weren’t, I’d know the truth.
We traveled across open countryside and forgotten roads until noon. According to my father, who had a military global positioning satellite tracking device, we’d gone approximately twenty-five miles south of the village. My father stopped the cart in the shade of a crumbling suburb speckled with dense overgrown vegetation. We still had quite a bit of traveling to do, but were close enough we could take a break.
Victor finished eating his sandwich first, and I noticed my father ate half of one, lifted a corner of the bread to see what was in it, and fed the birds his leftovers. Knowing my mom had made the sandwiches, and having seen my father’s reaction, I opted for a granola bar as I leaned against the last wall standing of a brown privacy fence.
“I see you wear twin swords.” My dad commented to Victor. “Are you any good with them?”
Victor shrugged. “I like to believe so, why do you ask?”
My dad grinned his playful “I’m about to do something my wife would kill me for” smirk.
“I have some duct tape in the cart. Go get it and cover your sword blades.”
At my father’s command, Victor hopped to his feet. This was going to be an interesting display. I’d only seen my father duel once before, and it had been against Drib, who was herself quite an accomplished swordfighter.
With the cutting edge of his blades protected by a stiff grey film, Victor held one blade upside down in is right hand and the other right-side-up in his left. His initial fighting style seemed similar to Drib’s but also different; Drib held both blades down.
Once my dad had covered his blades, he grasped the long katana at the end of his tail, and left his other two swords in the cart. He placed his feet shoulder-width apart, his hands palm out, and his tail arched high above his head.
“Come at me when you’re ready.”
“Sir, I don’t have much of a reason to fight you-”
“You’re ugly,” My father interrupted.
“No, that’s your reflection burned into your retina from the last time you looked in a mirror.” Victor retorted instantly.
“Ouch,” My dad laughed once. “You’ve got your mother’s tongue.”
“I’m sorry sir, it slipped out.” Victor blushed.
“Nevermind that, just come at me.”
“Sir, I normally fight defensively.” Victor answered, standing put.
“That changes things a bit then, doesn’t it?”
Before Victor could answer, my dad leapt into the air, gaining momentum by pressing on Victor’s shoulders with his fingertips. Victor threw his arms up as fast as he could; I wasn’t sure if the resulting clang was from the meeting of his two swords or one of his to my father’s.
Victor spun, but he was so close to my father, only his flailing limbs prevented his opponent’s tail from reaching him. Victor was good, but an entire war had made my father better. The man who raised me easily reached out with his hand and pried Victor’s right hand off the sword it held.
Victor flustered at the loss of a sword, but he still kept swinging, now against an opponent with two swords. My father began using the stolen scimitar in the traditional style of sword fighting while his tail slashed at holes in Victor’s stance. Before, fending off the tail had been difficult, but when used as a secondary weapon, it appeared impossible.
Victor had to continually back up until he was inside the decrepit house. Amazingly, he was able to block blow after blow, many of which seemed to appear out of nowhere. Finally, my father tripped him, and his tail swooped in to stop next to Victor’s jugular. Victor laid on the ground panting until my father, barely breathing heavier than normal, helped him up.
“I think you’re better with one sword.” My dad muttered. “You held me off longer.”
Victor smiled weakly. “My mom always thought I was better at everything else when using both hands.”
“Can I try?” I begged, standing up and dusting myself off.
“I don’t see why not. It’s only fair.” My dad’s answer forced a smile to my lips. “Just make sure your mother doesn’t find out—I’d never escape her wrath if you told.” He handed me Victor’s sword.
Once we were in position, we touched swords, and without hesitation, I lunged into action, just as I’d seen Drib do that time.
My father parried the fierce attack; his tail moved almost too fast to see. Knowing he was going to come in for a low blow, I snapped the blade I held wide, yet the instant his tail twitched low, I caught it with a parry of my own. His tail was knocked backwards and while it was away, I carved an ‘s’ in the air. Again with astonishing speed, he blocked each swing.
I could see him crouching low, like he was compressing springs in his legs; I braced myself for the move he was about to do. The dilemma I had was in blocking the attack that would follow; I didn’t think there was any orthodox way to do so.
As I’d anticipated, he flipped over my head. I blocked the swinging of his tail, but what surprised me most was what my tail did. It acted of its own accord, flying high, grabbing one of my dad’s knees, and slamming him into the ground.
He grunted but continued fighting; his tail was so long, he could fight from the ground.
“Note to self; don’t do that again.” He stated while rolling over his shoulders to his feet.
My attack came fast, but he found a way to stop it; he grabbed Victor’s other taped scimitar from the ground and caught my falling blade between his two. For the second time, my tail acted without my commanding it to. It snatched my dad’s other katana off the cart and aimed at his ribs.
My dad snapped the blade in his hands down to greet it, freeing my scimitar. Slashing down, I forced my father back a step. He responded by clicking his scimitar to mine and thrusting his katana forward. My tail caught the attack and my father stuck his tongue out at me.
We spun apart in opposite directions, ending up back where we started. His tail snapped one way and mine countered it. He tried to loop his tail over mine but I pushed it away. For every trick he attempted with his tail, my tail had a successful counter.
Meanwhile, our scimitars banged together incessantly. I tried a stab, but he deflected it harmlessly into his armpit. In the hole I created, he tried for a horizontal slice. Stepping to the side, I smacked his blade down with my own. We both swung hard at the other’s throat, and tangled swords; my wrist and elbow ached from the collision.
“Well, well, it looks like we’ve come to a tie.” My father muttered. “We’re in a deadlock.”
Indeed we were. My father and I had firm pressure applied to the other’s scimitar and just above our heads, our tails were twisted together with the katanas connected in a diagonal cross.
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