Jack Steel: The Tournament

When the Sky Men came back they brought weapons we'd never dreamed of. We had no answers. Lucky they wanted hostages, not corpses. The first attack, we found out, was just a test. They wanted to know how The Hub stood up to a fight.

Jack and our boys stood just fine.

Soon the place was up and running again. Jack worked showing the money through the tunnels beneath the boilers.

Sky Men took to constructing more tunnels, more boilers, more foundries, and all we built was more weapons.

It didn't feel like we were conquered. Sky Men treated us better than the founding leader of The Hub, for a while at least.

But then the new people came. Mercenaries, hard men, the best gun slingers in the galaxy. They all came for the tournament. We were each given a primitive rifle, they were going to hunt us like game birds. But we were armed to raise the stakes, and give us hope.

Some of the locals split up, I stayed with Jack.

We were stalked for days by two commandos from Kralliss, but Jack Steel knew the tunnels too well and led them into a trap. For one so young Jack had the patience of a chess master.

Soon we'd taken more than our fair share of scalps, and Jack was on top of the tournament's leader-board.
We based ourselves near the boilers, so that's where the best shots in the world wanted to come.

Sometimes it felt like we were dancing puppets though. It was time to escape, because we'd never be released, not from there.

Jack Steel: The Hub

Jack Steel was born in The Hub, main colony on the factory world of Clabrius. Jack worked in the boilers, a rough part of town, the power nexus for The Hub. Lived in a dormitory for other lost souls. Didn't school, school was just for the lucky ones.

In the boilers you don't care about the noises above. When the sky opened he didn't even flinch, just kept working. Wasn't till warning told them he took up arms. Fought the Skymen in the boilers, but it wasn't enough, they had to fight back.

Jack was a leader, commanded the resistance. The boilers never fell and they won back the foundry and part of the forge, nearly half the whole Hub.

But they were outmatched. The Skymen came harder. It was a slaughter. Only the most skilled survived. Sure enough one was Jack Steel.

But the Skymen never finished them. Holed up in the boilers we all wondered why. Was it mercy, or something else, that stayed their hand.

We waited, day after day. Boilers ran dry, air would soon be unfit to breathe. Jack went out alone. The Hub was deserted, expect for the dead. Skymen couldn't live without the boilers running.

Now there's water in the boilers and the ventilator works again. We try to rebuild but so much has been lost. We would have lost everything if not for Jack Steel.

The Howling

Howling, unintelligible, the man chasing was insane but he wouldn’t stop. I jumped a fence and still the man followed. He landed flat on the ground with a crunch but rose and chased on unperturbed, all the while howling away.

To my right, down another street, I could hear horses’ hooves pounding away, along with equine screams of terror. The fire that had started this whole thing was still spreading. Perhaps that was the source of the horses’ panic. But not even I was naïve enough to believe that. I looked back to see not one but three men chasing me. It was becoming clear that they were no longer really men.

Ahead a bus had overturned, blocking the entirety of the narrow street. The men were approaching fast, their howls more desperate than ever. A quick look around showed a small supermarket had its door open, even though the lights were off. If I’d had my time again I would never have gone in there. But I had no idea then how dangerous an enclosed space could be.

On the Grey Stone

Looking out
standing on grey stone
searching desperately
scanning fields of green
tiny ants run
silver sticks of death approaching
voice sings out
grey stone comes alive
defend the walls
the red flag of war is upon us

The Gift of Magic

“Can you hear me? Don’t be afraid.”
Chula scrambled away from the thicket. Where had the voice come from? It was deep and stern. Not boisterous like another ogre’s.
“What are you?” Chula asked.
“I am the power to make impossible into reality. I am magic. For you,” the voice said.
Chula was an ogre. Ogres were not magical. Though they appeared to be dim-witted monsters they were much like any other mortal race. But they were never wizards.
“You are not for me,” Chula said. “Ogres don’t use magic.”
Then she fled to her camp. At this time of year when the sun rose early and set late her family led buffalo through the plateaus. When the days turned dark they would retreat to the caves.
Her father was making arrows for the day’s hunt and Chula ran to his arms. She did not speak. Words weren’t needed. Her fear was obvious to him. Ogres usually had nothing to fear. His arms were enough comfort that she could return to her duties.
Plants infested the plateau. Many were poisonous, some were delicious. Chula knew how to spot each one. Today she searched for food. Another day she could be searching for medicines or even weapons.
“You return,” the voice said.
Chula looked around. It was not the same bush. The spirit was following her.
“Go away.”
“No.”
“Ogres are not magical,” Chula said.
“No mortal is magic. My kind are magic,” the voice said. “My kind are afraid of the Ogres. That is why you are never our wizards. But you are different. I overcame my fear to speak to you. I ask that you do the same.”
Magic had fears?
“What do you want?” Chula asked.
“You,” the voice said. “To be my wizard,”
Chula looked around. She couldn’t run away. The spirit would always follow. Her only hope was to reason with it.
“I don’t want power.”
“Yes you do,” the voice said. “Why do you study the plants if not to gain power from them? Why do you follow the animals and learn their instincts if not to gain their power? You have gained so much power already that other mortals could not dream of. Take this final gift from me. Be my wizard.”
The voice was closer now. It pleaded to her. She could almost feel herself becoming a wizard then and there. She could raise mountains and summon storms. She had true power at her fingertips.
But to what end? She had no use for this gift. With that thought the spirit retreated.
“I will wait,” it said.
Chula returned home much later in the day with all the food she could carry but the camp was not its usual buzz of activity. The Ogres were huddled together around something and Chula rushed over to see her father lying on his back with a huge spear in his stomach.
“The hill men attacked us on the hunt,” Cousin Bran said. “Can you help him?”
The spear was in deep. Her father was dying. No amount of medical skill could save him. Chula reached for her knife so she could end his suffering, but she hesitated. The voice was closer than ever.
“I am waiting.”

Return of a cursed one

Lebogan Shah peered through the slit in his door at the streets that were growing darker by the second. Soon the Parson's voices would be heard through the city of Dalasca, declaring the streets safe for the 'cursed ones'. That was what Lebogan Shah was called.
It had been that way for centuries in Dalasca. The blessed walk the streets by day, the cursed by night. Always separated.
"Retreat now blessed ones," the Parsons' song could be heard. "Lest the cursed corrupt your soul. Return now cursed ones, if you've the will to leave your hole."
A foolish chant, but it had been sung each day for centuries. The blessed would return to their homes and the cursed would emerge.
Shah's door opened. Dalasca was dirty and smelled of squalor and poverty but compared to his house the air felt cool and fresh. Other cursed were emerging, snarling at any blessed ones who remained in the streets. The blessed ones, the Altari, would be gone from the streets in minutes. The night belonged to the Krull, the cursed.
The streets and alleys were unlit and no moon graced the sky but Shah could see clearly. He walked amongst the cursed Krull, their skin like coal. A few gave him strange glances but most were used to his ghostly complexion in these streets. The night began like any other, until he saw a face he thought he knew, before it disappeared. Shah moved to follow. To find one who escaped his presence.
He knew the face, if his eyes did not deceive. Veska Ayari, one of the cursed maidens, a daughter of the Kingdom of Krull. Shah had not seen her in years and thought he'd never see her again. The sight of her alone nearly warmed the blood in his veins.
Shah had not always been cursed. As a child he walked by day among the blessed. A child of the Altari Empire. But he was forever curious and took to leaving his house at night, to spy on the cursed ones.
He had seen Veska, a girl with such passion and beauty couldn't exist among the blessed. He spoke with her and won her heart, but they could never be together. He was blessed, she was cursed.
Shah had left the city, not yet a grown man, to find a solution and he though he found it in the far off city of Mazanad. A man with ghostly white skin, cursed as teh Krull were to never see the light of the sun. Shah had asked the man to share his curse and the man bit into his neck, nearly killing him. But when he woke the curse had already begun.
Shah returned to Dalasca but Veska was horrified at him. She screamed he had given up his mortality. That he could no longer feel, no longer love. His curse was a thousand times worse than hers and she ran away, never to be seen or heard of by Shah again.
He ran through the streets. Trying to feel excitement, like those days so many years ago when he tried to feel heart broken, but could only feel emptiness. With thoughts of Veska so close Shah could almost remember how to be passionate. He tried to focus on thoughts of her eyes, her lips, her breasts. But his mind could only rest on her neck.
Shah froze. Something sharp was being held at the back of his heart.
"Lebogan Shah," Veska's voice was unmistakable. "It has been a long time."

The Broken Bottle

Joe lay on his dirty old couch on his back porch. He'd spent the night there, although he couldn't remember falling asleep.
His friends had come for a party to celebrate his escape from his vile marriage. That was the night before. Now there was just the usual devestation of the morning after.
Joe stared blankly at the unpolished deck. Tooheys cans and bundy cans everywhere. And the bottle of Smirnoff, smashed, broken shards all over the place.
It was not broken in clumsy drunkedness. It was in anger. All nights ended in anger for Joe. She was not the problem, he was. No wonder no friends had stayed to help clean up. Joe drove everyone away.
They had been so happy to begin with but the pressure of life had changed Joe. And after that he had changed her. Changed her into the witch she became, before she finally ended it with that piece of paper.
His friends had seen it all. They would support him but they also blamed him. All the jokes in the world didn't change their judging eys. He drove them away when he drove her away. Soon he would have nothing.
If only he could go back. To a time when he was not broken. But just like that bottle he could not go back.