Hyllis Family Story 1: Telekinetic (23 page)

Eyes downcast, Tarc shuffled out of the square with everyone else. They were passing between guards on each side of the main street arch. Guards who held their swords at the ready, eyeing each man as if expecting a revolt. Suddenly one of the guards lunged out, plunging his sword into a burly man three places in front of Tarc. As they dragged the dying man to the side an older man Tarc thought was the young man’s father followed them crying out, “What did
he
do?”

The guard stopped the older man with the tip of
a bloody sword under his chin. “He looked at me!” the guard snarled. “You
scum
keep your eyes down. Don’t be lookin’ us in the eyes if you’re wantin’ to live.” The guard’s eyes tracked back to the older man, now up on his toes with his head tilted back as the sword dug in under his chin. “Now, the next question is what do we do with a piece of shit like this one? Someone who questions what we’ve done so far? Well,
here’s
your answer.” He grunted as he drove the sword up through the soft underchin, through the base of his skull and into the man’s brain. He held the man there, suspended on the point of his short sword while the man’s feet drummed and his bowels loosed.

Then the guard dropped him to the ground next to his son and, reached out, waving the sword back and forth from Daussie to
Tarc. Daussie squeaked and dropped to her knees. Tarc crouched beside her, heart pounding, stomach cramping, bladder spasming. “You two,” the man growled, “drag these carcasses over with the rest of them.” He pointed with the bloody sword over toward the stage where some of the town folk were carrying one of the deputy’s bodies over to the edge of the stage. Tarc saw Shogun and the tavern’s wagon standing beside the stage.

Tarc
took Daussie gently by the arm and guided her out of line, glancing back once at Daum.

Daum looked angrier than
Tarc had ever seen him, but he kept his eyes downcast. His lips moved and Tarc thought he saw Daum whisper inaudibly, “Not now.”

Tarc
guided Daussie to the young man lying in the slowly spreading pool of blood. “Take his right wrist,” Tarc whispered, picking up the man’s left wrist himself.

Daussie shook her head violently and shied away.

Tarc leaned over and hissed at her, “Do it! Or they’ll kill you too!”

With a moan, Daussie bent and picked up the man’s wrist, holding it between her thumb and one finger
like Tarc had seen her reluctantly pick up a dead bug. Tarc started pulling the body along by the wrist, but Daussie lagged behind, not only not helping, but actually being pulled along herself by the man’s wrist. Tarc saw one of the guards staring at her. He leaned closer to her, “You’re pulling like a
girl
! If you don’t start helping, one of them’s going to figure out who you are!”

Daussie’s eyes widened and she gulped. She stutter
-stepped around and began pulling like her life depended on it. When they got to the wagon, Tarc took the body under the arms while Daussie picked up the man’s feet. They lifted him into the wagon next to the two deputies as gently as they could, then went back for the man’s father. Daussie said with quiet disgust, “You’re covered with blood.”

“
I know… better his, than mine or yours.”

“I’ll keep it together from here on out
,” she whispered.

Tarc
hoped so, but thought that if he were to say that, it might have the opposite effect he wanted. He settled for “Just do the best you can.”

The
y picked up the second man’s wrists and dragged him to the wagon. Dragging him seemed pretty disrespectful. They lifted him in as gently as they could. As they did Tarc’s eye became caught on the face of Deputy Jarvis’ on one of the severed heads lying in the bottom of the wagon. Letting go of the man he’d just lifted, Tarc turned to the side and threw up.

Daussie put a hand on his shoulder as he heaved. Speaking in as deep a voice as she could manage, she said, “Let’s go now.”

Tarc stood, wiped his face and they turned to go.

A voice came from
a ways behind them, “Boy!”

A spike of fear shot through him and
Tarc began to turn. Realizing that Daussie wasn’t turning, he elbowed her. “You too!” he whispered.

Once they’d both turned toward the voice,
Tarc, his eyes still down, said, “Yes sir?”

“You work at the tavern, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Isn’t this horse and wagon from your stable?”

“Yes sir.” Tarc said, noticing that the man hadn’t asked if the horse and wagon
belonged
to the tavern.

“You drive it out to the graveyar
d then. There’s a crew out there digging graves. Drop off them lot,” he nodded at the bodies in the wagon, “then you can take it back to the tavern.”

“Yes sir.”
Tarc turned and got up onto the seat of the wagon. To his astonishment, Daussie went around the wagon and got up on the other side. He whispered to her, “You don’t have to go with me. You can go back to the tavern.”

She shook her head minutely, but said nothing.

Tarc clucked up Shogun and the old horse leaned into its harness.

Once they were out of the square, Daussie looked around and, seeing no one near
turned back to Tarc, “If you go over one street, you’ll go right by the tavern. I could get out there.” She said it as if it wouldn’t be possible for her to get out a block away and walk the intervening distance.

At first, like in the old days,
Tarc felt irritated that she wanted him to go out of his way. Then he considered what might happen to her in that intervening distance. A wave of sadness washed over him at the loss of his sister’s innocence.

After he’d dropped Daussie off,
Tarc continued through the streets toward the gate. The few people who were out and about despite the events turned and stared at the grisly load he bore in the wagon. Desperately he hoped that they understood he’d been
ordered
to perform this task, yet from the glares he received, he suspected that they thought him to be a collaborator.

A block from the gate he heard running feet approaching him from behind. Fearing one of the soldiers he glanced back.

Not a soldier, but just as awful.

Deputy Jarvis’ young wife ran up behind the wagon, looking over the edge.
Hopefully she said, “Eben’s not…”

Tarc
felt as if his own heart stopped the instant she saw her husband’s head lying there in the bottom of the wagon. She let out a piercing shriek and stretched out her arms toward her man’s dismembered corpse. After a long moment she sagged so that the only thing keeping her from falling to the street were her arms hanging over the low boards around the edge of the wagon.

Tarc
uncertainly got down off the wagon. He had
no
idea what to do for, or about, the piteously sobbing woman. He put a hand gently on her shoulder, “Ms. Jarvis,” he began hesitantly, looking around. To his dismay he saw a couple of the soldiers approaching on horseback. Worse, one was the man who’d detailed him to take the bodies to the graveyard! “Ms. Jarvis,” he began again.

The woman didn’t react.

She continued sobbing.

Tarc
had no idea what to do.

He was
still clumsily patting Ms. Jarvis on the shoulder and wondering what to do when behind him he heard the soldier say, “Boy!”

“Yes sir.”
Tarc said, turning and trying not to sound sullen.

“I thought I told you to take that,” he nodded at
the wagon, “to the graveyard.”

“Yes sir, um, Deputy Jarvis
’ wife, uh, saw her husband, uh, and she…”

“What were you doing on
this
street?”

“Uh…”
Tarc’s heart thumped again in his chest as he wondered how to excuse his detour to drop off Daussie. Suddenly, he realized he had what would appear to be a good reason, “I was hoping to avoid people on Main Street, uh…” he waved vaguely at the woman sobbing against the wagon.

The soldier who’d been talking to
Tarc grimaced and rolled his eyes. The other soldier though, slid down off his horse and approached the wagon. Tarc’s eyes darted up and down the narrow street hoping to find some support.

It stood
as empty as a beggar’s dreams.

Tarc
turned and backed up against the wagon, wondering if he should try to run. Involuntarily, he shuffled a few tiny steps to the side, clearing a path for his escape. The soldier didn’t attack him though. Instead he stepped to Ms. Jarvis, grabbed the back of her dress and dragged her to her feet. He turned her and looked at her face, pretty despite the tears and the agonized look.

Tarc
took a couple of steps back. His knees felt weak. Again he scanned the street for help but it remained empty.

Letting go of the back of her dress
the soldier grabbed the front with both hands, ripping it open to expose her breasts. The man gaped at them a moment, then said, “Them’r mighty fine.”

Still holding Ms. Jarvis up by the shredded front of her dress, he turned to the soldier still up on his horse and barked a cruel laugh, “This bitch just
thought
she had problems befo…”

Whatever else the man had been about to say cut off as
Tarc’s knife buried itself hilt deep in his left eye.

Tarc
turned, reaching back over his shoulder for his second knife.

The soldier on the horse was turning toward
Tarc, eyes widening.

Tarc
’s hand flew forward.

The soldier ducked as his sword scraped out of its scabbard.

Terror flashed over the soldier’s face as, impossibly Tarc’s knife followed his head as it attempted to evade.

T
he knife plunged into his left eye.

The horse bucked once in response to the convulsion in its rider, throwing the soldier to the ground.

Tarc turned to Jarvis’ wife, but she’d clasped her ruined dress about her and begun sprinting away down the street. Desperately anxious to be away from this scene, Tarc leapt to recover his knives, wipe them on the soldier’s sleeves and remount the wagon. Shogun pulled the wagon forward and its wheel stopped on, then bumped over the would-be rapist’s arm.

As he turned the first corner he came to, he glanced back, relieved to see the street still as empty as before.

Except for two dead men and their horses.

As Tarc had expected, the invaders now manned the gate. As he pulled up, one swaggered up to the wagon. “Ah, takin’ a load of
shit
to the field I see?”

Tarc
kept his eyes downcast and made no response.

“Hey, you’re the boy works at the Tavern, ain’tcha?”

Tarc nodded.

“
I’zat hot li’l honey I heard waits tables there back at work yet?”

Tarc
shook his head, disgust, fear, and anger warring for his soul.

The man laughed, “Well, you tell her Taso, for one, is dyin’ to make her acquaintance, eh?” He slapped
Tarc on the back heartily, “Meanwhile, you’d better get
that
load out of here before it stinks up the town.”

As if an afterthought, as the wagon rolled through the gate, the man said, “And be rememberin’ that if
’n you don’t come back, we’ll be killin’ a couple of members of your family, whosomever that might be.”

Another spike of horror shot through
Tarc. For a moment he felt gratified to realize that the soldiers didn’t seem to realize that the tavern was a family business, but he knew it would only take a few questions for them to figure it out.

***

When Tarc arrived back at the tavern later in the afternoon, the first thing he did was pull the wagon up next to the well. He trotted to the kitchen and opened the back door. Eva turned, saw Tarc, and let out a little shriek. She started towards him.

Tarc
held up his hands to halt her, “It’s not my blood. Eva stopped just short of him and he felt sure she must be examining him with her ghost.

She relaxed.

He said, “If you’ll hand me the buckets, I’ll wash myself and the wagon. I’ll need clean clothes.”

She handed him the buckets, “Get Dodge to wash the wagon. I’ll need you in here as soon as possible to wait tables.”

“Where is Dau-Dodge?”

“Probably hiding in the stable. She’s pretty traumatized… but we’ve got to get her back doing stuff, instead of
…” Eva’s voice caught, “of moping.” Her own hands were wringing her apron.

Tarc
frowned, “You think she’ll be able to wash the blood out of the wagon?”

Eva’s shoulders slumped, “I wish…” She started again, “I think we should act like she can. She’s going to have to be… tough
er. Both of you are going to have to do… things that kids your age shouldn’t have to do.”