Serial
122: A lesson of peace
June 30th, 48 S.D. 13:41 Besnol, Central Plains
Inside Farfel, past the gates, the land went up at a small incline, just as Riva had said. Shortly thereafter, however, the earth suddenly gave way to an immediate drop. For some 100 or so meters, the plains fell straight down. Such geography was unusual for the region, but here was a veritable cliff. The sheer face of it exposed stone and dirt, a feature that had inspired the Besnol to excavate it.
Losha pulled Izel closer to the edge. Having already dealt with the upper level security, no one bothered her at the top. Below her, however, she could see yet more soldiers. A few small buildings populated the bottom, the largest of which looked to be a processing station. Besides that, she picked out what looked to be living quarters and a local garrison. As she leaned over, extending her head past the vertical edge of the cliff, Losha spied dozens of workers along the wall. In a long row, they slowly chipped away at various points, rending rock with clanging, metal tools. As she observed, they had to haul their pieces directly to the station; they used neither mule nor wheelbarrow for their jobs. Somehow, Losha doubted that had been an oversight.
With a frown, she parked Izel and dismounted. To her right, a wide wooden walkway led down to the quarry, zigzagging back and forth. She could have used this route, but no one seemed to have noticed her yet. Perhaps she could take advantage of surprise and make an entrance for herself.
“Stay here, my friend,” she instructed to her faithful horse. Izel puttered and seemingly nodded at her. “This will not take long at all.”
She looked past the cliff once more, calculating a host of variables. At this height, she figured out the exact amount she’d have to increase the strength of her kinetic shield, if she were going to survive a fall. After taking another moment to double check herself, Losha stepped backwards a few paces. She drew seras around her entire body, giving all her parts and pieces a luminous, azure outline. As soon as this was done, she instantly dashed ahead, charging towards the cliff. Leaping off, Losha was soon captured by the likes of rushing gravity. It hurled her fast to the ground, taking her to the quarry floor in a matter of seconds. Like a blue bolt, she crashed into the hard soil with a resounding thud. Her force-field absorbed the impact and directed it back downwards, causing the whole area to tremble slightly. A cloud of dust exploded around Losha, shrouding her image in brown, dirty fog.
As the Wolf made her landing, all eyes bewilderedly turned upon her. The workers whirled around, looking behind, while the soldiers hastily gazed ahead of themselves. She’d fallen somewhere, in the middle of the quarry’s facilities, halfway from the buildings and the cliff itself. All at once, the people began reacting to the strange blast, confusedly shouting, pointing, and ducking away, as if it would happen again.
After a brief scramble, the Besnol gathered themselves, and an armed squadron moved quickly to the site. As they closed in, Losha swept her arm to the side, casting a series to blow the dust away. The wind cut through the particles and flew at the soldiers. They shielded themselves from the blinding gale, raising their arms up. Losha’s series but lasted a few seconds, however. Opening their eyes again, they saw Losha’s figure appear before them.
“What the hell is going on?!” roared a Range Lead. Originally, he’d suspected artillery fire, but the least of his expectations involved seeing a person like the Wolf. “Who the hell are you? What are you shrieking doing here?” the officer demanded.
Losha simply looked around herself without answering. Instead, she turned and examined the workers. From this range, she could clearly see they were chained together in groups as a means to prevent escape. Most of them were male, but she saw both sexes present. Their clothes, ragged from abuse, carried permanent stains from darkened sweat spots. The dry powder of the quarry’s stones mixed with their perspiration, giving them cracked, chalky skin. Nearly all of them were emaciated, a condition especially evident in their faces. Her medical expertise was limited, but even Losha saw the signs of malnutrition, dehydration, and exhaustion. Any more stress, and surely these people would perish. She stepped towards the poor souls, but instantly, she was beset by a swarm of soldiers. Racing to encircle her, the Besnol cut her path off.
“Stop right there!” the Range Lead bellowed, gripping the handle of his sheathed sword. The others around her similarly readied themselves; each of them prepared to cut at the slightest provocation. Losha remained unamused by their show of force, but she paused anyway.
“Do not move, you! Not even the slimmest centimeter,” the chief officer yelled. “Just who do you think you are, barging in here? This is Besnol military property. You look like an enemy to me; I would skewer you right now, but I want to get some answers before that. I do not understand what you did a second ago, however, I demand to know who you are and what your a*s if doing in my outpost. You a spy? A saboteur?”
“I have come to free those workers of yours, the Shansala,” Losha said.
“The Shansala?” the Range Lead repeated. “Ksh! You must be some damn kind of mercenary they hired or something. The nerve of those shitheads. How the hell did you get here?”
“I jumped.”
“Jumped? From where...?” Almost instinctively, everyone turned to the rising cliff, the only logical conclusion. “Huh?” The Range Lead scrunched his brows before focusing on Losha again.
“You see, Range Lead, I am what they call a serialist. I am capable of many such shocking feats. I suppose most know me as the Wolf. Perhaps you have heard of my name.”
“The Wolf!” several of the soldiers cried together, looking at their comrades, left and right. Even the Range Lead stepped back one wary pace.
“That... That is impossible. The Wolf has not been seen in years!” he protested. “You are simply an imposter. You cannot use her name to frighten us. Go on, everyone. Apprehend this impudent liar! If the Shansala sent her to rescue their people, we will put her to work with the rest as an example.”
“Go and draw your weapons, but you will find you have no swords,” Losha said.
The Range Lead paid her words no heed. He pulled out his blade, and by his confidence, the rest followed. Losha merely raised her hand as it covered itself in blue light. Her palm was open in one moment, then snapped shut shortly thereafter. She’d cast a large kinetic series targeting all of their weapons. By applying enough pressure rapidly, she could slice the metal. As the soldiers held their swords up en masse, they were cleaved in two. The stabbing ends broke off simultaneously, lamely falling into the dirt. In awe, everyone grew silent as they gaped at their now useless tools.
“If you will step aside now,” Losha said, walking forward. The Besnol all at once widened their distance around her, creeping backwards.
“S**t! It really is her!”
“Stay back! She could zap you at any moment.”
“No, she will freeze us, or something.”
“D****t, watch out for her sword, it can cut through anything!”
“I am not here to fight, Range Lead,” Losha said as she came face-to-face with him. The officer, unlike his underlings, had not budged. Though on the surface, it may have seemed as if he were standing firm, in reality, he was utterly paralyzed. The only thing he could do was shut up as he stared down hard at Losha. The side of his mouth twitched slightly, but he had nothing to say; his throat was constricted. How the hell was he supposed to deal with a legend in the flesh with no weapons? Even if he had thousands of spears, swords, and sharpshoots at his command, he knew the Wolf could have easily sliced them all down. Hadn’t she said she’d jumped from the top of the cliff? If she could live through that, what on the Continent could they do to her? True, she was surrounded, but he and his troops were the unlucky ones today.
Losha went past him, and a gap in their formation opened for her. All eyes tracked her, but none dared to challenge the serialist. While the Wolf continued over to the Shansala, the soldiers whispered amongst themselves. One of them stepped up to the Range Lead.
“Range Lead, what do we do? We cannot fight her! She will just walk all over us at this rate.”
The Range Lead glowered ahead at some empty space, but aside from his tightening grip, he was absolutely quiet.
“Range Lead? Range Lead!” the soldier cried urgently, yett the commander didn’t seem to hear anything.
Having demonstrated her strength, Losha went to the base of the cliff, unbothered by the Besnol. The Shansala gazed upon her in both fear and wonder. Uncertain of the Wolf’s intentions, they pressed together, backing up against the towering facade to their rear. Wide-eyed, they were mute, apprehensive, shuffling slightly on their feet. When at last she came upon them, Losha paused. Up close, she could see various scars marking their bodies, discolored streaks of former pain. In all likelihood, the Besnol were responsible for those wounds. She let a breath escape from her lips as she closed her eyes for a second, but after opening them again, she went to the nearest Shansala, a young male.
He had barely seen the years of puberty. For an instant, she was reminded of Jun... Losha knelt down and reached for the shackles around his ankles. The lad fidgeted and whimpered, trying to pull away, but Losha held onto him gently. With a brief flash, she cast a series over their bonds. Using her art, she unlocked their chains in one swoop. The restraints jingled to the ground as they slid off. Each of the Shansala looked down at themselves, amazed at the sudden transformation; it were as if they had shed a heavy skin. Losha stood up and spoke aloud to them.
“You are free to go, everyone. Your work here is done.” They could but blink at her, as if her words were of a foreign tongue. Nevertheless, she turned around, beckoning them to follow her. “Your debt to Besnol is voided. They have no power to force anything upon you. Come with me, and we shall leave this miserable place.”
“Lady... who are you? W-why are we being let go?” one of them asked tepidly.
“Hmm?” She looked back halfway. “Everyone wants to know my name today... Sa, no matter. Just call me Losha the Wolf. I am here to rescue you because what has been done to you all is deplorable, so I am putting an end to it myself. I can take you back to your village. Riva is waiting for you all.”
“Riva?!” one man exclaimed. “My sister, Riva? She sent you?” Behind the other Shansala, a man sat on the ground. His leg was in a splint while bandages wrapped around the top of his head, preventing him from seeing anything. Even in this sorry state, the Besnol had forced him to work. He held a hammer, and beside him was a large pile of rocks he’d broken down. Losha stepped closer to him as the rest made room for her.
“Are you Lori?” she asked. He bobbed his head about, trying to face her voice.
“Sa, indeed I am. And, are you truly the Wolf? The real Wolf?”
“As far as I know,” she shrugged with a smile. “What happened to you?”
“Those b******s beat me last week, to make an example of me when I protested...” he wheezed. His breathing became labored the longer he talked. Lori seemed at his limits. “I... could not let them take Alst... They took him...” He swooned, nearly collapsing.
“Enough. Speak no more. We are getting everyone out of here.”
“Can we... really just leave? Just like that?” one older Shansala asked.
“Of course,” Losha assured them. “Who is going to stop us? Who could even stop us?”
As the reality settled in, weary exhilaration rose among their ranks.
“At last, an end to suffering.”
“We can go home now.”
“It is over, all over...”
Losha took a moment to contemplate how best to return to the village. While most were able to walk, the trek back was not a short travel on foot. The journey would prove dangerously difficult for them and downright impossible for those such as Lori. Her keen senses soon picked out a large covered wagon sitting by one of the buildings. It looked big enough to carry a dozen people on either side and handfuls more in the middle. That should have been sufficient for the Shansala, albeit a bit crowded. Izel himself could not pull it alone, however, Losha figured she could drive it via serialization. Using a kinetic series, she could simply push it across the prairie. She had plenty of seras to spare, so the task seemed feasible.
With a wave of her hand, she summoned the wagon, drawing it towards them. For a second, Losha recalled hearing something about the horseless carriages so many in Gandia used; she wondered if they were actually anything quite like this though. The sudden, almost ghostly movement alarmed the Besnol as they whipped around and gasped collectively. They kept clear of its path, steadily watching Losha’s actions. The Range Lead, however, was neither afraid nor intrigued by the series. In fact, he grew outright enraged.
“Shrieks! What are you doing now?” he shouted, marching over to the Wolf as the wagon settled in front of her.
“I am commandeering this vehicle. I need some way to safely move all of these people,” Losha said evenly. The The Shansala visibly pulled away as the officer confronted Losha, but she urged them along into the wagon at any rate. She made sure special care was taken as two others helped Lori in first.
“Damn you!” the Besnol officer growled. “Perhaps you can get away with taking the Shansala, but to steal our property? Where do you get the authority?”
“If you do not wish to have these problems in the future, I would advise against enslaving innocent people. If you do not agree with what I am doing, you need only stop me. Are you going to stop me, Range Lead?”
He stiffened and sneered all at once. He knew quite well he could do no such thing, even with an army behind him.
“Why the hell are you doing this for such insignificant people? The Shansala are worthless fools, garbage unfit to live among us. What does the great Wolf of Sventa gain by helping these wretched little people?”
Losha frowned angrily for a second or two; she felt an almost unchecked desire to strike the officer to the ground. However, today, she had come to teach a lesson of peace.
“I am no longer Sventa; they have abandoned me. And never once was I great at all. But you, my sad, ignorant friend, are the worthless fool.” She shook her head. “You treat them less than human, as if they were worse than animals, but in truth, yours is a monstrous heart.”
“What?!” he hissed as Losha folded her arms.
“Look at them. Battered and bruised, on the verge of death. How does that repay their ‘debts’? Your intents all this time were savage, a slow process of extermination by making them expendable labor. I ask myself how anyone could behave this way towards others, but we both know the answer. This is the cruel world we have built, the bloody, treacherous Central Plains. Violence is the culture of the land. It perpetuates itself into every generation, an infection that lasts as long as we do.”
“Look at them. Your eyes view them with disdain and disgust. But look closer and you will see something else, something your mind stubbornly ignores. These are people, no different from you and me. You may say, ‘but they do not look like me,’ ‘but they do not act like me,’ ‘but they do not think or eat or live like me.’ Irrelevant. How does any of that matter? That someone happened to be born in a different place no less qualifies them for dignity and respect. Perhaps to you it is clear, a distinction of ‘us’ and ‘them’, a case of dealing with ‘others’. Yet know this, Range Lead, you too are always someone else’s ‘other’.”
“Today, you inflict undue harm on the Shansala, but what about when your turn arrives? Sa, your time will come, and you will suffer at someone else’s hands simply because you were not enough like them, because you were the ‘other’. And there will be no mercy for you, just as there is none here. That is the cycle you are feeding. You only damn yourself if you continue this path. Today, I chose not to fight with you; I chose not to raise my hand against you and yours. But you would do well to remember that there are more like you in these lands than me. Whereas I have shown you kindness, many will not. Treat all as your enemy, and all will become your enemy. When we put an end to all of these aggressions, as I have done with you, sa, then there is hope.”
As the Shansala finished piling into the wagon, Losha waved it away, using a kinetic series to control its movement. As it began to leave for the quarry’s ramp up the cliff, Losha grabbed hold of a hand-bar at the end and hoisted herself onto a small footstep. Rather than climb in right away with the rest, she hung on, looking back at the Range Lead as they departed.
“This world is going to change, Range Lead. One day, one way. We will think of ourselves not as clans, but as brothers and sisters. When all is said and done, you and I are the same, children of Aste. That time approaches soon. Think about it while you chew on your hate. Farewell.”
Far away, unnoticed by any, three dark figures emerged from the bushes. Even in the heat, they clothed themselves fully. They were the Zeroes. Dressed just the same as when Losha last met them, they peered through the vast grasslands ahead. Through their visors, their eyes glowed intensely, pure white. As each leaned closer, seemingly focusing on the quarry, this brilliance increased.
Suddenly, a man popped up behind them. Unlike his teammates, he exposed his face and wore a lighter variation of their armor. He was tall and impressively built. Though he had no hair up on top, he had a well groomed goatee. Upon seeing these events unfold, he stroked his chin curiously. After a while, he smiled to himself.
“Heh. Start recording this,” he commanded to one of the other Zeroes. He continued to watch Losha as she stood against the Besnol, then took off. How unexpected that she would show herself so soon. They hadn’t even been looking for her. It was good that he had masked his seras frequency as part of standard operating procedure. Things were still too early in their plans for more interference; none of them could afford causing any real trouble with this mysterious serialist at the moment.
He chuckled to himself nevertheless. The Besnol mission would have to be postponed as a precaution, just until she left the region. That woman had already caught them off-guard once, attacking the Black Jackal the other night. Another unscheduled encounter was best avoided. But who was she? She couldn’t have been the one he was thinking of... The mother of modern serialization? The man tapped the inside of his ear, somehow activating a method of long-range communication. He waited a while for the channel to stabilize.
“Boss, this is Scorch,” he said. “I am putting this job on hold for a bit. Sa... Sa, it is her again... No, we have not been spotted. A meeting with the everyone else? Very well. I will see you soon. Over and out.”
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