Oath of the Survivor

Kyle looked up and down the row at his prisoners, and not for the first time in the day contemplated the series of events that had put him in this position.  He knew many of the patients at his hospital sometimes felt like he was a jailor and tormentor, but this took it to an entirely different extreme.  An extreme that, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with.  Still, with the situation as it stood he knew he didn’t have the luxury of entertaining any doubts.  Squaring his shoulders and straightening his back, he addressed the group. 

“My name is Kyle Mayhew.  I don’t know any of you, and you don’t know me.  What you do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that I’ve treated you better in the short time that I’ve known you than Carlyle did in however long he worked with you.  He saw you as liabilities.  Frankly, so do I.  But I wasn’t willing to stand by and watch beaten men die.  You weren’t a threat to myself or others, and I intervened.  You all need to understand that if you do anything to threaten the safety of the innocent people here, you’ve made my choice an easy one.”

Kyle paused before continuing.  

“What you’ll find is that you have a pretty simple and short list of options.  First, you can travel with us quietly to Nierburg and avoid making trouble.  In that case you’ll live.  You’ll be handed to the Central Authority, where you will be asked to share what you know about Carlyle and his group.    Your second choice is to do anything other than choice number one.  You can try to run, or free yourselves, or take a hostage.  You can create an interpretive dance.  Frankly, I don’t care.  If you do anything that puts the people in this camp in danger, that’s it.  I didn’t have a problem handling you when you were armed, and I certainly won’t have a problem with it now.   I can also assure you that of the two of us you encountered earlier, I’m far and away the nicer one.” 

With that sentence, he gestured with his head in the direction where Garth was meditating, the rest of the camp giving him a wide berth.  The captives looked from Garth to the sword in its scabbard beside him, and Kyle watched as the defeat really sunk in.  He didn’t like using fear and these types of threats to get what he needed – he’d tried and failed on more occasions than he could count to get his patients to make healthier lifestyle choices with fear – but he was confident that it would be enough to get to Nierburg. 

From there it would be in the hands of the Central Authority to figure out what they wanted to do with their prisoners.  Given the chaos they were embroiled in, Kyle couldn’t help but think that there would be some leniency.  If there wasn’t room for grace at the end of the world, when would you find it?

~~~

Carlyle pushed himself to his limits as he covered the ground back to Duilleag.  His lungs burned with every breath and his muscles screamed for him to slow, but he gritted his teeth as he kept pushing.  OVERHEAT wasn’t designed for this type of prolonged use, but he wanted to get as much distance between him and the stranger as he could.  Garth was a known quantity, easy to navigate after the levels and increased control he’d been developing over his powers.  The stranger was something else entirely.  He had crossed a distance that Carlyle had assumed impossible in the blink of an eye, and what’s more he took a fully charged FIREBALL head on without a moment’s hesitation.  Movement and durability at that level wasn’t something that Carlyle felt at all capable of contending with, especially not with another awakened in play. 

As slow and predictable as Garth was, he was still dangerous.  Not nearly as dangerous as the man Carlyle had to answer to, but still plenty dangerous.  Just as he felt OVERHEAT cross into truly dangerous territory, he released the skill, pulling out his canteen of water and drinking deeply.   He felt the mana within him flowing sluggishly, overused during his flight.  Still, he’d crossed a respectable distance.  What they’d planned an unawakened group to cover in a week Carlyle had covered in a few short hours, and even without his boosting skill he’d be able to make to Duilleag before nightfall.  Unfortunately, the most dangerous part of the journey was still in front of him.  For all the dangers he’d just escaped, he didn’t look forward to telling Gregory Valentine that he’d lost an entire squadron of men.

~~~

Can’t even meditate properly.  Well, damn.  Garth was doing his best to calm down, the rage inside him still seething in the hours since they’d returned to the camp.  Seeing Carlyle again opened wounds that hadn’t had a chance to heal, and with revenge so close.  He hated that Kyle had chosen to let Carlyle get away.  No, that’s not right. Garth corrected himself, I hate that I was too weak to kill him myself.  Once again, I was just too weak. 

That was a disappointment Garth had wrestled with for a while, and it was one that kept stinging.  For all his power, he didn’t have what it took to protect the people most precious to him.  He thought about Crystal, about Dylan.  He thought about how they would have eased the journey, how they would have gotten along with Kyle.  And that, it turned out, was the key for him.  He knew his friends would have gotten along with the strange young man, just as he knew that they would have trusted his judgment with the call he’d made.  Crystal would have been horrified if he’d let innocents get killed for something as petty as revenge, and he expected Dylan would have felt much the same.  While the pain and anger didn’t fade, Garth knew that he couldn’t continue to direct these feelings at Kyle. 

With a sigh, he opened his eyes and rose from his position on the ground, picking up his sword.  He saw Kyle walking towards him, and prepared himself for the dressing down he deserved. 

“Garth, I’m sorry.”  The words startled the older man, and he found himself at a loss for words.  Kyle continued, “I can only imagine what you were going through having to confront Carlyle like that.  He’s responsible for taking a lot from you, and in the moment you needed me to be stronger I wasn’t.  I don’t regret protecting these people, but if I was stronger maybe I could have caught him.  If I had taken your training more seriously at the start maybe this would have played out differently.” 

Garth saw the earnest expression on the young man’s face, and he held out his hand. 

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, kid.  You made the call you should have made, and I see that.  I’m not happy with how things ended, but that’s an issue for another day.  My reaction… was excessive.  I’ll have a lot to work through once we’re settled in Nierburg, that’s for sure.”  Kyle took Garth’s hand in a firm grip, a resolute smile on his face. 

“We’ll get there Garth.  You’ve done a great thing for these people, and for me.  And none of us will forget that.”  Garth smiled at the words, though a part of him was still unsettled.  Kyle had been hiding an abnormally powerful boosting skill.  And why would he have kept it a secret, if not to have an ace at a critical moment?  Did he really feel like he needed to have something like that in reserve to turn the tides if things went badly?  Did he distrust Garth that much? 

Kyle seemed to notice the doubt behind his eyes, and he turned as he released the younger man’s hand. 

“Tomorrow will be a good opportunity to close this chapter.”  Garth finally said. 

“Go get some rest, I’ll keep watch on them.  You can take the second watch.” 

Kyle was still a little unsettled by Garth’s demeanor, but exhaustion and hunger won out as he made his way to his usual area of the camp to settle in and relax before the evening meal.

~~~

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