[Danny]

wow. i now have no less than FIFTEEN more chapters of this written!! who said that first person was harder to write?

CHAPTER 6

When people tell stories about Abe, they always seem to gloss over the killing bits. He just possesses a slig, and then blows it up. It’s easy. It’s the work of a few seconds. There’s no consequences, no pleas for mercy. It’s all very simple. I don’t know how true the stories are. Sometimes I think that the special powers were just exaggerated rumours, to make the stories more exciting. I think that maybe he kills them in the normal way, by shooting them with stolen guns or something. It’s a very unromantic view to take, but it seems more realistic. At least, that’s what I used to think. I know better now, of course, but back then I was a total cynic.

The incident happened about halfway through the journey. It had been quite easy so far. All the Glukkons and Sligs ignored us, seeing that we were just another bunch of drifters. Our group had swollen to about fifteen, as other groups had joined us, realising that they had nothing to lose by leaving Cyrcit. But even this large group hardly drew any attention. After all, drifters move around all the time. That’s just what we were.

But then we caught sight of another mudokon. Not a drifter, we’d seen hundreds of those, but a slave. He was being escorted somewhere by three sligs. I guessed that he had done something bad, because the leading pair of sligs kept hitting him with their rifles as they walked along, and laughing. There hadn’t been much conversation between us up to this point, but all conversation ceased when we saw the four figures approaching us. We stood aside and watched. As we watched, the mudokon slipped in the mud, and fell onto his face. The two leading sligs laughed at him, and knocked him back down when he tried to rise. One slig then proceeded to wack him repeatedly in the head with its rifle, while another laughed, and the third hung back silently.

They had passed us by this point, and I was able to creep up behind them without difficulty. I grabbed the rifle from the first slig (the slig who was beating the mudokon), and hit the third slig (the quiet one) with the barrel, knocking it out. I immediately turned the barrel onto the second slig (the one that had been laughing) and raked it with bullets. The first slig had recovered from the attack by now, and leapt onto my back. I spun around, dropping the rifle, and wrestled it off my back. I held it in front of me, twisting its head around on its shoulders.

In a way, killing Zell had been easy, as he had fought back. That way, he presented a threat to me, so it was self-defence, my twisted mind reasoned. But this slig was in no position to fight back, as I had it in a headlock. I could have killed it in a second, and resistance would have been useless.

“Please don’t kill me!”

Zell hadn’t said anything like that. Zell hadn’t believed that I was either capable or willing to kill him, and so had defended himself quite effectively, until I had a weapon. This slig, however, had just seen me kill two of its companions, and could see that I was both willing and able to kill it. Faced with this plea for mercy, I was suddenly unsure of myself.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“I was only following orders!”

I wasn’t quite sure what to do now. “What… What orders were these?”

“The mud was caught trying to escape. We were told to take him to the Detention Centre for punishment.”

I was suddenly angered by the coldness of that statement. I twisted the slig’s neck almost to breaking point. “And did those orders include beating him for falling over before you even reached the Detention Centre?”

“Ow! Not… Not in those exact words, no!”

I allowed the cold anger, the Madness, to take over. I watched as my hands broke the slig’s neck, and watched them let the body slip to the ground. I took control once more, and crouched beside the mudokon who’d been beaten. He was curled up in a foetal position on the ground. I stretched out my hand to his shoulder. He tensed, then relaxed.

“Hey!” I said softly, “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

I helped him to sit up, but he collapsed into my arms, tears streaming down his face, which he buried in my shoulder. I wondered what those sligs had done to him before we saw them. A hand touched my shoulder, and I looked up. Vint stood over me.

“We’re not safe here, especially with those bodies lying around. We should move on. I’ll help with him.”

We each took one of the mud’s arms over our shoulders, and helped him to his feet. He supported almost none of his own weight, but the two of us could hold him up. Looking around, I saw Yan crouched beside the body of one of the sligs. It was the quiet one, the one I’d hit with the rifle.

“This one’s still alive.”

Vint looked at me. “What should we do with it?”

The other drifters had left at some point, for some reason. Probably when the fight started. There was just the five of us now. Ulp approached Vint and me. “We can’t leave it, it might tell the guards something about us. Give descriptions, and stuff.”

Yan stood up and faced Ulp. “What would you suggest then? That we kill it, in cold blood?”

Ulp said nothing, but looked at me. I could tell what he was thinking: I’d already done it once…

Yan continued. “This one didn’t seem cruel like the others. It was just standing here and watching.”

“They’re all as bad as each other.” Ulp scowled.

“Let’s take it with us.” The words came out of my mouth, and I suppose it was something I might have said if I was thinking clearer, but I never thought it until I said it.

Vint looked surprised, but Yan nodded. “I’ve known sligs who weren’t that bad. This could be one of them. If not, we can always kill it later. If it does join us, it could be of use.”

Vint spoke up. “Whatever, but we should get moving.”

Ulp strode over to the fallen slig. “We should tie it up. We can’t afford to take risks.” He took a length of rope from his pack, which I hadn’t known was there.

Yan picked up the two rifles, and put them in his pack. “You’re carrying him, then.”

Ulp smiled. “Gladly.” He hoisted the slig roughly onto his back, tied it there, and we set off again.