Shorn: Chapter 3

Shorn spent the next couple of days following what game trails he could find that led toward the high pass. When they faded out or turned off, he forged his own path until he came on the next one. He stopped one evening when it was nearly dark, in a small clearing near a shallow stream. There was plenty of wood lying around, and he considered building a fire but decided against it. He’d gained plenty of altitude during the afternoon, and it would get chilly tonight, but his home planet was far colder, and he wouldn’t be unduly affected by it.

He sat down and leaned against a tree. From his pack he took the cloth bag containing his food.  Dried meat. Hard biscuits. A wedge of cheese. A smaller bag filled with nuts. If he was careful, he had enough food for another five days or so. What he would do then, he had no idea.

After eating, he spread out his blanket and lay down. There was no moon or clouds, and the stars were very bright. He felt them looking down on him. Where was his home world? Was it orbiting one of the stars he could see? He had no way to tell. The ship that brought him here was programmed, and he was never told the destination. All he knew was that he was being sent to a planet far away from any of the solar systems that Themor ruled, a primitive one to ensure that he would have no possibility to return.

He remembered when he first met Netra. He’d finally found an honorable death in battle, and she’d stolen it from him. Saved his life when he didn’t want it anymore. He’d been so angry at her, stealing his escape from him and burdening him with a life debt that he had to repay before he could die.

And then, somehow, she’d saved him again. Her cause became his cause. Against all hope, he had something to live for. He could set aside his own suffering and lose himself in protecting her. All that mattered was keeping her alive so she could save her people. It was enough.

Until the war ended.

With nothing left to fight for, he was empty. He had helped win Netra’s war, but his own was just beginning. It was a war he had no idea how to fight. But he was losing. That much was clear. The hole inside him got larger every day.

He made it nearly two years. But finally, he knew he had to do something…

 

Shorn left the palace and headed down into the city, nodding at the guards as he passed through the gates. He didn’t have any place he needed to go. He didn’t have anything he needed to do. He just couldn’t spend any more time sitting in his rooms. He had to get out.

It had been a problem ever since the war ended. He had no purpose. There was nothing to fill his days or his nights.

Everyone said it wasn’t important. “You’re a hero, Shorn,” Rome told him. “I’d give you half the city if I could. You earned it. Enjoy your rest.”

But Shorn didn’t enjoy it. Having nothing to do only meant that all the old feelings of pain and loss could return redoubled. Memories hounded him night and day, all of them reproachful, wearing the faces of all those he’d killed and wounded.

And he had killed. Thousands were dead by his hand. Most weren’t killed by him directly, but by those warriors under his command. Following his orders.

The Themorians did not invent new technology. Nor did they improve existing technology. But they did know war and killing. When they needed something, they stole from others. There was no reason for their own science. They simply took what they wanted. Few races, other than the Sedrians, could stand against them.

Shorn had commanded thousands of men, hundreds of ships. He’d led raids and full-scale invasions, both in space and on the ground. And he was good at it. Not once did he ever fail in the objectives given to him by his superiors.

But for all their advanced, stolen technology, what the Themorians liked best, was hand-to-hand combat. And it was there that their greatest skills lay. The battles they relished were the ones where they stood face to face with their foes as they slaughtered them.

Shorn had excelled at that too. He was a master of knowing when the time was right, when the enemy was on their heels. When he could lead his men on the killing charge.

At nights, when the old memories were their hungriest, he saw their faces. The terrible light they got in their eyes when they knew their death had come for them. At one time, he’d reveled in that. Now, it only sickened him.

No, Shorn didn’t feel like a hero. He felt like a monster.

Having nothing to do left him defenseless against his memories.

Rome offered to make him a general in his army. “The things you know, Shorn. If you could teach my men even a small bit of that, there’d be no stopping us.”

But Shorn didn’t want to train soldiers. He’d had enough killing.

In the first months after the end of the war, there’d been lots of clean up to do. The Children had wrecked large portions of Qarath.

Shorn worked with the cleanup crews every day, dawn to dusk, lifting stones that would have taken a team of men.

And then that ended too.

Now he had nothing.

As he walked down into the city, he steeled himself against what he knew would come. It didn’t take long.

Everyone saw him. Everywhere he went. How could they not, when he stood a head taller than the tallest, and twice the breadth? If they didn’t, the copper skin and amber eyes were extra reminders.

A woman and her child were coming up the street toward him. They hadn’t seen him yet. The woman was chastising her child for some misbehavior, while the boy looked down sullenly.

But then his shadow fell over them, and they looked up. The woman blanched. The boy froze, his eyes very big.

“Good…good day, Lord Shorn,” the woman said, trying a weak curtsy. The hand she put on her son’s shoulder was shaking. “Bow,” she hissed at him. The boy sketched a hesitant bow, never taking his eyes off the big warrior.

Shorn inclined his head. “Good day.”

They practically jumped out of his way, pressing themselves up against the wall of one of the fine estates that lined the street this close to the castle. Shorn heard the boy whispering excitedly as he passed.

Always it was this way. The citizens of Qarath knew who he was and what he’d done for them. They were grateful for it—in the way that someone would be grateful for a bear that drove away the wolves coming to eat them.

But they were terrified of him as well. They tried to hide it, but it was there in their eyes, the way they pulled their children close when he was near. He had saved them, it was true, but they had seen his true self.

His murderous, violent self.

Was it any wonder they feared him?

The scene, variations of it, was repeated over and over during his walk through the city. They practically ran to the other side of the street to avoid his passing. One woman had just stepped out of her house when he approached. She gave a small shriek, dropped the basket she was carrying, and ran back inside. He heard the bolt slide home as he walked by.

He walked into a market square, hoping that the sheer press of people would keep him from being noticed right away. But he’d taken no more than a few steps when something, some kind of current, ran through the crowd. Almost immediately, all conversation stopped. Every eye went to him. People began to leave.

Shorn wanted to shout at them, tell them they had nothing to fear. But they wouldn’t believe him, and he wasn’t sure he believed it either. What else was he but a fearsome, alien creature? He’d helped them before, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t turn on them now.

He tried not to notice, turning to a street vendor who was cooking chicken on a grill with wheels. The chicken smelled good. He pulled out some coins.

“One of your chickens, please.”

The man went white. “Take as many as you like, Lord. Take them all.” Don’t kill me, his eyes said.

That was the day Shorn knew he had to leave.