Red Foot Girl - Chapter 1 'The Raveners'

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Last Day of the First Month of Spring, Vega Year 1073 - Basalt Traps/Red Grass Valley

     Mio had no idea who or what had hit him. Whatever it was, it hit his head so hard that the resulting ‘CRACK’ didn’t even register as a sound. 

     The heavy stone, slung with desperate force almost knocked him out of his boots. Before he hit the ground, his automatic flight system dumped so much adrenaline into his bloodstream the little man took off!

     Mio started running faster than he’d ever run in his entire life.

     He could see his arms and knees pumping. He could feel his feet scrambling and hear his gasping breath.  

     It would have been spectacular…

     Except… He didn’t move, not one tiny little finger’s length.

     In his panic, the exhausted map maker had completely forgotten that he was still firmly harnessed to his extremely overloaded trekking cart.

     In the next breath, before he could get untangled from the harnesses, two filthy men exploded out of the wall of red grass, swarmed him and tied him up like a pig for slaughter. He tried to fight, to twist free but they overwhelmed him with little effort.

      They tied his wrists so viciously that the stiff ropes cut into his flesh and his hands went numb almost immediately.

     He tried to ask why but they just kicked at him. He could see their mouths moving but the sound was muffled and the edges of his vision kept disappearing into swirling black spots of nausea… 

     As they manhandled his cart, Mio twisted his head away―the stench of them was sweet and horrific, layers of rot and sweat and decay. He shut his eyes but the image of these two things, not men, just savage burnt skinned, animated corpses with black eyes, fly specked skin and shit smeared hands.

     With grim efficiency, the stinking men unbuckled the harness strap that had prevented Mio from running away, tossed the little man over the top of his overloaded mono-cart and wheeled him down the cart path and into their red grass camp―exactly like a couple of farmers with a sack-full of potatae on their way to a seventh day market.

     As more and more blood pooled in his head, dizzying waves of sickness overwhelmed Mio’s senses. Time moved past him without notice and he was lost to the black void of unconsciousness. 

     When he came to, stinking of vomit, he couldn’t hear words anymore. The men were still there, their black-hole mouths snapping open and shut, like loose shutters on an abandoned refuge. But the sound was muffled, incomprehensible. 

     It was full dark by the time they arrived back at their campsite. It was well hidden, deep in the center of the toxic red grass. They immediately dumped him into the dirt and started focusing all of their attention on the over loaded mono-wheel.

     The camp was filthy and they had clearly been there for some time―Mio judged six months at least just going by the amount of garbage. Broken gear and trash was piled up along the edges of the camp, so high places it obscured the shoulder high grass. They were deep in the center and Mio could see there would be no easy escape, even if he could manage to get himself untied. 

     The skinny one lit a cracked plast lantern, carelessly overfilled with hennep oil and set it on the side panel of the broke wheel cart they were using as a table. He pointed at the thick canvas carry-alls stacked on Mio’s mono-wheel and said to the other, “Hah, I tole you this ‘un be worth stopping. See they all’r heavy…”

     The bald greasy one poked Mio in the side of his neck with a rust pitted knife blade, opened his broke tooth mouth and spit out, “Which ‘un’s got the gold?”

     Mio, holding his aching head in both hands and trying not to puke on his boots, looked up, flabbergasted and asked, “Gold? I’m a mapper for the Plutarks… It’s just soil samples and suchlike…” 

     He pointed at his black-n-purple canvas jacket, a distinctive tell for all Sector City contractors and tried to explain the obvious, “I’m just… I’mma…” 

     He stopped, trying to find the right word and then just stared at them stupidly. They must be sun crazy or worse. He kept pointing at his jacket pocket, where his permit lay and finally sputtered out, “I’m not a miner, I don’t have gold…” 

     Without meaning to, he shrugged at them and then made a ‘what the ever lovin’ fuk is wrong with you two idiots’ face and tried to explain his role again, “I, I… I work for the Plutarks…” 

     Both of their faces went purple with rage―obviously this was not what they wanted to hear. 

     The greasy one grabbed the first thing to hand, a blasted out battery box from a nearby trash pile and hurled it at Mio. His aim was terrible and Mio watched it arc across the campsite and land about a length away but his smirk of derision was forestalled by a second throw that hit him square in the face. 

     Mio flinched back and tried to focus.

     Greasy roared, ‘The SHIT I care who you work for… Plutark? Them Guilds? None ‘o them is stupid enough to pay some scrawny little mano to go dig up DIRT!” 

     He eyed Mio suspiciously and spat, “Da fuk’s wrong with you? Lying dirt digger…Which one of these is got the gold?” 

     He fingered the knife again and said with a soft grin, “Make it easy on yourself…”

     Mio blinked at the man, his right eye closing a beat slower so that he felt a lot more than just a little bit snocked… His head was pounding, his hands were throbbing and suddenly he couldn’t keep anything straight. 

     He opened his mouth and tried to answer. Nothing came out except some air. Finally he just shrugged at the crazy man… He honestly didn’t know what to say. 

     The man went crazy and started grabbing at all the sacks and canvas carry-alls, yanking and pulling at everything, weighing each carefully in his hands and when they didn’t weigh up, one or the other would dump the item into the dirt and then start screeching their foam flecked abuse in Mio’s direction. 

     They turned the other way and the sound disappeared again. Mio blinked and pulled on his ear lobe. The flushed faces turned and then turned again. He could see their eye holes sunk as deep as death in the dim flicker of the lantern light, the black hole mouths snapping open, screaming their inarticulate rage in his direction. The echo of the noise roared out across the red grass but Mio couldn’t hear the words anymore. He shut his eyes and tried to tune it out, trying desperately to just think, but all he could see was their tiny little pinprick eyes glittering with rage. 

     He watched them through his fingers. He’d been holding his head earlier and they didn’t seem to notice the difference. The men were of an age and height and both were covered in filth. They weren’t dirty, like you’d be after a few days camping. They were black with it and Mio could smell the sickening sweet stench of decay from across the blacked out fire. 

     When they turned towards him, with their sun scorched faces and matted hair, he couldn’t tell them apart except for the color of their eyes. The skinny one had blue eyes… Bright blue. They were both thin, starvation thin and the greasy one’s stomach pooched out far past his hips. 

     Exhausted by their disappointment, they finally stopped screaming at him and in a raging silence they dumped out sack after sack. His dried food, his gear, and nine solid months of effort, everything he’d been working towards, for the last five years. 

     In less than a half hour, his entire world lay scattered across the dirty campsite, covered with a litter of tiny little plast vials, full of dirt. 

     When they started dumping out the canvas boxes filled with his carefully labeled soil samples Mio watched in horror, his mouth opening and closing, ready to what? Ask these two sun-crazed lunatics to stop? 

     He hunched down, trying desperately to stay small and figure a way out of this insanity. Unfortunately, the sight of the growing pile of sample vials sent his overloaded brain into a panic—his months, NO, years of unending, exhaustive effort, scattered in the dirt. 

     The words burst out of him unbidden, “Please, please don’t, I’m begging you.”

     One turned and looked him right in the eye and then kicked and scattered the vials every which way.

     Suddenly, Mio was furious. He just couldn’t seem to help himself. Gold? They wanted gold? They didn’t have water or food but they were dumping out his dried protein and searching for golden treasure? It didn’t make one single bit of sense. 

     He took his hands off his face said with absolute contempt, “Gold? You waterless morons are looking for gold? I’ve never heard anything so patently ridiculous in my entire life…”

     The other one, the ‘skinny one’ turned towards Mio, his face screwed up so tight his eyes completely disappeared. He started kicking and scattering the dumped out gear pile. When that didn’t exhaust his fury, he grabbed an unopened sack, the last sack, and stalked towards Mio, brandishing a knife.

     Mio blinked. It was his knife, his favorite knife and a ridiculous item to have on a cross-country trek. A falcuta shape, dramatically curved, the knife was beautifully smithed with a folded steel ‘leaf’ pattern and a deeply carved ironwood handle. 

     The long bladed knife was one of his only vanities and as sharp as sunlight but it was also dramatically curved, heavy for it’s size and difficult to handle.

     The skinny man stepped closer and closer, his face black with fury. Mio shied back—and pinched his mouth shut. The man’s breath, his stench was overwhelming. Mio tried to close his nose, lean back, stop breathing but it did no good. The dirt smeared man smelled like death, literally.

     The man stalked closer, brandishing the knife at Mio and with a look of pure evil, he dramatically sliced the top off the carry sack… and almost sliced his own arm off in the process. The sack dangled and spilled half the vials before the filthy man could finish his dramatic ‘show’ by dumping them over Mio’s head. 

     He stopped dead and tried without success to cut open the half open sack, now swinging freely and Mio couldn’t seem to help himself. He didn’t want to antagonize these men and he understood that they were dangerous… Maybe it was the head wound, but he did it and the man just about went insane. 

     Mio smirked.

     The blue eyed man brandished the knife again and when Mio didn’t flinch at the ineffectually show, he threw it down and then grabbed Mio’s shirt, almost pulling it off over his head. 

     He bent over and hissed, his voice dark with menace, “You know what, little mano…”

     The skinny one turned and looked over at his friend. 

     They both went completely silent. 

     Mio flinched. Suddenly they both turned towards him, staring at him with their crazy eyes… their crazy hungry eyes. 

     Mio did not quite understanding exactly what was going on, but his fight or flight system sure did. He reared back and tried to run, rope tied ankles and all, but the skinny one had his shirt collar gripped tight. 

     The greasy one came closer, rubbing his thumb along the edge of his rust pitted knife, testing for sharpness, “No gold, huh? Well that does change things… Um hummm…” 

     With that ‘Um hummm’, the man’s voice changed from rage to someone imaging DINNER and Mio’s face blanked in shock and he started to struggle as if his life depended on it.

     The skeletal men started circling Mio, prodding at him with the tips of their knife sharp fingers, making even more sickening comments; “Oh yessss, you are a juicy one, arerentyou?”

     “Ooo, a little small, oh yes, but still, fresh and sweet for the pot.”

     “Whatchoo think? I’m thinking fresh chops for breakfast is what I’m thinking…”

     Mio hunched down and shielded his head, shut his eyes and tried to block out the stench of their rotting pulp, black hole mouths as they circled him―two human faced hyenas, checking him for fat content.

     The skinny one grabbed his shirt again and pulled hard enough to pop the top two buttons. The effort dislodged Mio’s cool pads and the heat crazed men immediately started fighting over the lifesaving technology.

     There was only the one set and neither were willing to share. 

     The fight started with them ripping Mio’s pads off and then screeching at each other over who deserved to have them. It ended with them rolling around the dirty campsite trying to strangle each other with their bare hands. They were both weak with hunger but their fear at losing out on the life saving tech seemed to give them extra incentive. 

     As they snatched and scratched and fought, Mio was distracted by a sharp sound, piercing like a whistle and the bright flash of orange out of the corner of his eye. 

     Before he could turn to look, his eye caught the movement of something arching across the campsite. It caught the light and then landing next to his boot; Plop!