The Superiors Read online

  Ander deposited the limp body of Byron into the sand. Draven could see his friend’s head lolling back, half separated from the body. His glance flitted from his friend to his enemy, and a blind rage encompassed him. This man preyed on humans, and that was bad enough. But now he had killed and cannibalized Draven’s friend and mentor, and would do the same to Draven.

  But again the man’s arrogance played against him. He had assumed Draven lacked the strength or will after being drained for so long, after having lost so much blood and being in so much pain. He had turned to finish off Byron, thinking his prisoner would remain pinned to the sand when he turned back. Instead, Draven knelt behind him.

  Ander didn’t even stop to deliver a blow this time. He opened his bloodstained mouth in a roar of rage, meaning to latch onto Draven again. But when the gaping mouth came towards him, sharp teeth dripping blood, Draven drove the splintered end of his dagger into the opening.

  Ander’s scream of fury mixed with disbelief and pain this time, and he fell back, clawing at the protruding wooden instrument. Draven held tight to the hilt and jerked it back from Ander’s mouth, afraid the man would retrieve it and turn it against him. He drew out the wood, slick with blood, the sharp splinters mimicking Ander’s teeth only moments before. He drove the hilt into the man’s chest. Before Ander could recover from the blow, Draven yanked it out and buried it in the man’s neck, then his throat, his mouth, and his chest again and again.

  He used every bit of strength he had, only vaguely aware of the nuisance of the two steel daggers keeping him from his usual range of movement. He didn’t feel the pain anymore, only the endless drive that had replaced it. He held onto that, knowing that when the pain returned, it would paralyze him. Only after Ander had lain still for several minutes did Draven’s blows begin to ebb, and he plunged the splintered wood into the gaping, bloody cavern that had been Ander’s chest before rolling away and surrendering to his own pain again.

  Draven lay in the sand for a long time, breathing again, breathing in the cool night air that became cold and then frigid. He didn’t move anything except his lungs. Pain seared through his chest. A movement caught his eye, and if it had been Ander, Draven would not have had strength to fight again, not even for one more breath.

  When at last he turned his eyes to the sound, he found his friend with his face in Ander’s chest.

  He had to work to form words, to put them together into a sentence. “What are you doing?”

  Byron lifted his head. “I’m taking back what he took from me.”

  Even through the pain, Draven felt a swimming sickness at the thought. “But…he is…one of us.”

  “And he drank the life from me. If I want to live, I need the strength to do it.”

  “But…that is…cannibalism.”

  “You were once only a sap, and yet you eat from them without a thought.”

  “I…am not…sap…now.”

  “No, but you were once a lowly creature like them. And now you are better, and you take the advantage you are given. Now Ander isn’t one of us, because he’s dead. So I take the advantage, because I want to live. See how much stronger I am now than you? Come and take back what he has taken from you.”

  Draven tried to think of an argument, but his mind clouded and pain throbbed through his shoulders. He reached up with both hands and clutched the hilt of one of the steel blades and rested. When he had summoned every bit of energy he could, he tugged on the dagger until it slid from his flesh. He lay on the ground and let dry sobs wrack his body. Then he pulled the other dagger out in the same manner, and the blood ran from the openings where the swords had been. The blood trickled away and in the same slow way he lost himself and slept, the last thoughts flowing away with the trickle of blood filtering down into the desert sand.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Draven woke with a hunger he hadn’t known possible. He found his pack in the tent with him, tore it open, and ripped the seal off a bag of powdered sap and poured the contents into his dry mouth, and then another packet, and then another. After five packets, he unzipped his tent and stumbled out.

  Byron sat nearby. He’d found a supply of wood somewhere and built a fire against the chill of the night. A pile of twisted dry branches lay behind him.

  “Ah, my friend, you rise again. Bring your pack and come sit by the fire.”

  Draven obeyed and sat on his pack across the fire from Byron. His friend looked as he always had, healthy and strong and noble. “How long have I slept?” Draven asked.

  “Three days and three nights.”

  “I need water.”

  “Yes, here,” Byron said, handing Draven a bottle of water. “While you slept I scouted the area. I found water about a night’s walk from here.”

  “You left me sleeping out here alone?”

  Byron laughed. “Nothing is out here that can harm you now, soldier. You have disposed of the enemy.”

  Draven hadn’t forgotten the night of his injury, but he started at the reminder. “I killed a man,” he said, trying to make himself believe by saying it aloud.

  “Yes. You killed Ander. That was our assignment. You have more than fulfilled your obligation. Without your courage, we would both be dead.”

  “My courage? Your neck was slit and you took him from me when he was draining me like a sap.” Draven touched his neck where Ander had left a gaping hole. He’d taken a chunk of flesh from Draven that hadn’t grown back yet.

  “There was that. But you stayed alive until then, and you killed him while I lay in the sand doing nothing.”

  “Yes. I did that.”

  “Yes, you did. And don’t ever say you’re like a sap. You’re a courageous, brave soldier. Not one of those sniveling, repulsive little brutes. Here, I have a bottle of wine. Let us celebrate. I’ve been saving it for this night.”

  “Thank you, no. Now that I have water, I believe I’ll just mix up some sap. If I’d known you had wine I would have drunk it days ago. We were parched.”

  “I saved it for a victory. I waited for you to wake before I opened it.” Byron opened the wine and held it out. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I do not like having waste.”

  “Alright soldier. I will celebrate our victory my way and you can do it your way.”

  Draven retrieved two more packets of sap, wondering if his bottomless hunger would ever fade. He didn’t feel like celebrating. He had killed a man. He didn’t like knowing he had done this thing even to a man like Ander. And in such a horrible, savage manner. He always tried to avoid hurting saps, didn’t like to see animals suffer. And yet he had brutally stabbed a man to death with a splintered piece of wood.

  After mixing the packets in a bottle of water, Draven emerged from his tent and sat. Byron drank the wine and Draven drank two bottles of reconstituted sap. After a while Byron threw a piece of wood on the fire. Draven felt drained even after three days of sleep, but also relieved. He had finished the task he’d set out to accomplish, even if he didn’t like to think of the manner in which he’d done it. He would receive his payment—a lot of payment. He would buy Cali, and they would get a place that accommodated livestock. He would buy her caramels whenever she wanted them, and he would draw from the most delectable source he’d ever imagined. Just thinking about it made his teeth throb fiercely.

  “Can I ask you a question, Byron?”

  “Anything, soldier. What is it you want to know?”

  “Why do you hate saps so much? I think they are…mouthwatering,” Draven said, the roots of his sensitive teeth singing with memory.

  Byron laughed. “Everyone experiences the world differently, Draven.” He took a drink of wine from the bottle. His voice sounded thicker than when he’d started drinking. Neither man said anything for a long time. Byron drank the wine, and Draven sat looking at the fire, wondering if he should let himself drink more sap. He thought his hunger would never end, and he’d slept enough for a week and still felt exhausted.

  When B
yron spoke, Draven started. He’d been so lost in his own thoughts he’d almost forgotten the drunken man on the other side of the fire. “You can’t understand, you can’t know what it was like,” Byron said, his voice almost a sob. “You don’t know. For you it was easy and civilized, and I know, because I evolved some of you and I monitored the ones I changed, and I helped them to get through it, Draven, I helped so nothing would happen like it happened to me. It was terrible, I did a terrible, terrible thing and I didn’t know.”

  “What…what did you do?” Draven asked, not sure he wanted to know.

  “When they did it, the First Order, they did it so fast, and without any preparation, and we didn’t know. Most of us didn’t even know such a thing existed, what we are now, people didn’t know about it. I didn’t know. I’d heard stories, but they were legend, tall tales. And they came in the night and they killed all of us, they killed everyone, or we thought they were killing us. Except the children. They killed everyone but the children, when we were sleeping or sitting at home watching the news, they came in silent like armies and they killed us, and some of us killed them too, and that’s why most of the First Order are dead. That, and the War, and not many of them to start.”

  “How…I mean…they didn’t really kill you. They just evolved you. I thought it was a good thing.”

  “It is, now. But then…we were humans, you know, stupid and scared and weak. They came and they killed us, or we thought they had, but they’d just changed us, the ones they wanted to evolve, mostly the men and some women, the ones who looked strong or pretty, and then they let us go. I didn’t know what happened, I didn’t know what I was. I thought I’d been killed, but then I woke up, so I knew I hadn’t died. I was mad, crazy, you know. And others, the other new Superiors, they were mad, too, everyone was running mad and scared because no one told us what was happening. And we all wanted something, we were hungry and we wanted to eat but we didn’t know what it was we wanted. That’s how they planned it, you see. They changed enough of us and let us go to kill everyone else. And we did.”

  “You killed Superiors?”

  “No, not until later, not until the Hundred Year War. Then I killed a lot of people. But then, we only killed the humans. They owned the earth. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what the world would be like if the saps ruled everything?”

  “I’ve heard about it, of course. But no, I can’t quite imagine.”

  “It’s true. We didn’t even know there was something above us, you know? We didn’t know about Superiors. Not until they came in the night and changed us. But we didn’t know what they were, we didn’t understand what we were. Not until later. They just let us loose to kill all the homo-sapiens. And we did.”

  “All in one night.”

  “No, that part is just a myth. But it did happen fast. So fast. We were younger, and not as strong, but we were a lot stronger than the saps. And you know there were no rations, no limits. We just ate as much as we wanted, and we got strong fast.”

  “How much did you draw from a human though?”

  “All of it.”

  “You drained them completely?” Draven couldn’t imagine drinking all of a sap. It didn’t seem possible that one person could eat that much.

  “Yes. I guess you could say we should have known better, but the truth is, we were like animals, even more than they were. That’s why the Superiors let us loose—they knew what we would do, and that’s exactly what they wanted. And when everyone around us was doing the same thing…it just got to be like a mob mentality. It wasn’t pretty, but that’s what happened. We went into houses, or waited for them to come out, or tricked them into coming out, and then we killed them.”

  “How many sapiens did you kill?”

  “All of them.” Byron took a drink of wine. “Except the kids. The First Order told us not to, and I’m sure some people did anyway, but a lot of the kids were saved. And we’d been told we’d be killed, so if we had any control we stayed away from the kids. The First Order, they tried to go into the houses with kids there and get them out before we went in. Of course that wasn’t always possible. There were a lot more of us. But no one wants to get a baby, and whatever humanity we had left might have given us pause. And we were rewarded for bringing the kids out, too.”

  “And what of your children?”

  “Ah, yes. We changed them later. But yes, we had kids. We were both changed at the same time, my wife and I. We lived in a city called Phoenix. It was destroyed in the War. It’s north of here, out of the Funnel and west.”

  “So how long did it take?” Draven asked.

  “Not long, I’ll tell you that much. They hit the cities first, and the small towns they invaded more slowly, evolving everyone in a town over a few days or weeks. They would bring one person through the evolution and then put them back, and soon enough everyone had joined or died. It took…I don’t know exactly. It wasn’t a night. But maybe a few years.”

  “Years? Really?”

  “Yes. To get everyone from all the secluded spots all over the world…it took a while. But we were already ruling by then, of course. I mean, the First Order was ruling. I’m getting more wine, my friend. Do you want some?”

  “No thank you, sir.”

  Byron stumbled to his feet and retrieved another wine bottle. “Cheers, my friend, here’s to our successful capture of the man Ander, and to our safe journey home.”

  “And getting paid for it,” Draven added, nodding to the salute.

  “And that,” Byron said, laughing. “I guess you’ll have your money for traveling now.”

  “I guess so.” Draven was quiet, thinking. Thinking about telling Cali, about going to the Confinement and getting her and taking her home. She would be his, finally. It seemed like such a long time he had worked for her, although he knew that in reality, it wasn’t long at all. It would have taken a lot longer if he had only his bouncing earnings, if Byron hadn’t taken an interest in him. Catching those extra saps, and especially catching Ander, had turned a far-fetched possibility into a reality. He would have enough for her right away, as soon as he received payment for his service. It would all be worth it then.

  “Byron,” Draven said, when both men had lost themselves in their thoughts for a while.

  “Yeah, soldier?”

  “You never quite told me why you hate sapiens so much.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “Not exactly. You almost sounded like you hated Superiors from what you said.”

  Byron laughed. “Hated Superiors, huh? No, I wouldn’t say that. I just wanted to let you know how lucky you were to have evolved in such a way. Your transition was easy. Of course, a lot of that was due to necessity. If you had gone crazy on the sapiens like we did, none of us would be here. There would be nothing left to eat and we’d all have starved by now.”

  “That’s true.”

  “That’s why those of the Second Order are much stronger than you. Also our generation’s evolution was slower, you know. Over a few years and then even after that, we could take a human we wanted for whatever reason and take them through the evolution process. It wasn’t until later when we started running out of food that it became illegal. In fact, all through the Hundred Year War, humans evolved. All the time. Just to be sent into war, of course. That’s all they were meant for, and hardly any of them lived. They’re more the Second Order and a half. There’s only a few of them left, though, and they are counted with the Second Order since there are so few of them. Ander was one.”

  “Ander? I did not know this.”

  “Yes. Anyone changed before the Second Evolution is classified as Second Order, no matter when they evolved. The later ones had a better experience than those of us in the first wave. But we were all made for the same thing, really. You, me, Ander. We were all fighting different enemies, but we were all created to kill. That was our purpose. We’re killing machines.”

  “Ander is the first person I’ve ever killed.”

  “Is
that so?”

  “Yes. As I’ve said, I’ve never even killed an animal or a sap.”

  “Some would say you’re a lucky man. You have nothing on your conscience.”

  “I guess now I do.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “That I did a terrible thing, but that I didn’t have a choice.”

  “We always have a choice, Draven. I felt that way at first, too. But now I know.”

  Draven sat up, glaring at his friend and superior. “And what was my choice? To let him kill us both? What kind of choice is that?”

  “It’s still a choice, Draven. You chose to live, as we are living. You had a choice, and you made the right one. That’s all.”

  “You may call it a choice,” Draven said. “But I don’t see it as any kind of choice at all.”

  “I know. That’s how we protect our conscience. That’s how we go on after doing terrible things.”

  “And you would know?”

  “Yes, I would know. I killed many men in the war, and in the line of duty, and I don’t know how many saps. But they don’t count. They aren’t people. Just vile and filthy creatures that unfortunately can evolve into one of us. The only thing good that can ever come from them is their sap, and if I can get it without thinking about where it came from, all the better.”

  “Then why do you own them, and not just buy canned sap?”

  “It’s just easier, especially with the family, not to have to go buy it. Plus, we get more from them than we would through the rationing program. Ah, I’m afraid I’ve drunk too much and spoken too much. You must be bored with my stories of the old days.”