The Faith Eaters, Chapter 3: Origin of Species
The stars flickered high in a glowing sky that night, August 25th, of the year 3845. Silver moonlight filtered through the trees, bathing the forest floor in quiet shadows and catching shifting motes of dust in the warm evening breeze.And Harvest ran for his life.
"...Get 'im..."
"...Don't let the freak get away!"
The yells grew closer.
"There he is!"
He twisted nimbly through the trees, first sprinting to the right, then leaping high to grasp a branch and hoist himself to a limb, only to continue his frantic flight through the branches.
His mind raced.
-Why do they pursue me? I have done nothing.
The chase continued with the yells diminishing for a time, then returning with vigor as his trail was once again discovered.
Hearing a crackling of underbrush to his left, Harvest again lifted himself into a tree. He crouched there in frozen silence as a young man of about 20 stepped onto the trail.
The man looked tensely to his right, then swung his head to the left, failing to glance above him before slinging his magma-rifle and lighting a cigarette. His face was bathed for an instant in an amber glow as he inhaled, then puffed a mouthful of smoke carelessly into the air.
Harvest remained where he was, body still but heart racing. His nose wrinkled as a bead of sweat rolled teasingly down his forehead. The smoke from the cigarette rose through the branches. It burned terribly in Harvest's nose, bringing tears to his eyes.
He closed them tightly and prayed silently for the man to take his smoke--his gun--elsewhere.
But the man did not leave. Indeed, he was joined by two others who also lit cigarettes. The burning smoke from these too twisted and danced through the branches and seemed to hover cruelly around the head of the figure crouched in the trees.
And, try as he might to withstand the burning in his nostrils and watering of his eyes, Harvest wrinkled his nose and sneezed.
Time seemed to slow to a stop as three pair of eyes cast their gaze upwards, into the trees, and focused on the silhouette of Harvest outlined against the starry night sky.
Then all three men grabbed for their weapons, Harvest leaped to the ground over 30 feet away, and the chase was on.
-I have done nothing!
Heart racing, Harvest sprinted through the forest and was quickly able to outdistance his pursuers.
But not their magma-rifles.
His back arched and he tumbled to the ground as pellet of molten lead punched through his side.
He lay in the bushes for a moment, breath coming in painful gasps, the sweet odor of burnt flesh and acrid stench of singed fur assaulting his nostrils.
-Why? I have done nothing...
He considered remaining where he was, letting them come for him, surrendering to the pain.
"...ah think ah got 'im..."
"...He was goin' that way..."
"...kill the freak..."
The three men had apparently been rejoined by their 30 or so fellows. Their biting yells pierced the otherwise still
August air, menace and cruel intent dripping from grinning mouths.-I have done...nothing...
Somehow Harvest found the strength to pull himself to his feet. He leaned against the long dead trunk of a tree for another moment to catch his breath, then, biting back the pain, he plunged into the underbrush to the right of the forest trail.
Accessing some well of energy from deep within, he continued to run. His path remained on the ground now, through the brush and brambles of the deeper forest. Branches whipped at his face and tore deeply into his arms, but he ignored them and ran on. Overhead the glowing light of the moon flickered, then faded as a bank of clouds rolled across the sky and covered the silver orb.
And Harvest ran.
The voices faded behind him as he continued to push through the underbrush.
-I have...done...nothing...
Harvest's path carried him north, towards the outskirts of Kinsborough.
-I...have...done...nothing...
About two miles from Kinsborough's first Picket Line was a stream, which Harvest arrived at after staggering through the woods for nearly an hour. It was here that he stopped to rest, if only for a moment. The laser burn in his side throbbed terribly and he struggled to block the pain out of his mind.
The sky above was now filled with a light layer of clouds. Not enough to threaten a heavy storm, but enough to block out much of the light from the moon and stars. This was indeed the only advantage Harvest now held over his tormentors, that of darkness. His acute night vision was, however, hardly compensation for his wavering strength and the superior numbers of his pursuers.
The pain in his side stabbed viciously as he knelt beside a pool in the stream and carefully lowered his head to lap up mouthfuls of water.
For an instant the clouds parted and the silver light from the moon filtered through the trees to illuminate the reflection of his battered face. Once golden fur was now crusted with sweat and blood from dozens of nicks and cuts. A tuft was missing from over his left brow where he had struck a rock one of the many times he had fallen. Then the clouds shifted and the forlorn image was thankfully taken away.
-I have done nothing...
A branch crackled behind him then, and he reacted instinctively, jumping to a thick branch several feet above him. He immediately wished he had done differently as the wound in his side pulled open and began to burn again. But he remained crouched on the branch nearly 20 feet from the ground and bit back the pain, replacing it instead with anger as the young man who had earlier smoked the cigarette stepped from behind a tree and walked to the edge of the stream.
Once again he failed to look up.
Powerful muscles bunched in the legs of the person in the tree above and he lunged, determined, finally, to kill at least this one. Harvest struck the man squarely in the chest, smashing him to the ground, and landed astride him, one leg planted in the groin, a hand around the neck and the other pulled back, claws extended.
...I...
His arm flexed and claws plunged towards the man's chest.
...have...
Harvest saw a look of fear in the bright blue eyes of his victim. Terror.
Voices filtered through the woods.
...done...
Claws continued to arc through the warm night air.
...nothing...
That fear was mirrored in his own eyes.
He slowly relaxed his arm and retracted his claws.
With painful slowness Harvest slipped the magma-rifle from the quivering man's shoulder and tossed it into the stream. Then he rose from the ground and ran into the forest, to the north, towards Kingsborough.
Behind him yells, grew in intensity and he continued to run, staggering regularly, falling more and more often.
His lungs burned, indeed his entire body felt as if it were on fire, when he plunged from the woods on the edge of Olde Kinsborough Proper, still nearly a mile from the first Picket, and fell into the ditch which ran the length of the narrow road. His leg twisted beneath him and he yelped, then bit his tongue and dragged himself onto the street. He tried several times to rise, but in vain. Then, using his last reserves of strength, continued to drag his pain wracked body down the gravely road, oblivious to the small rocks and grit that rubbed against his cuts, dug into his side.
He reached the cities first streetlamp, nearly fifty feet further, before the first of his pursuers came out of the woods; gained the second lamp before the entire group was gathered on the roadside; and the third before one of the men placed a well aimed shot between Harvest�s shoulder blades. The pain as the round sizzled through his spine caused his body to spasm and he flipped violently onto his back. Then his nerves went dead, and he had only strength enough to watch his oncoming doom.
--I...have...done...nothing...
It took nearly 20 minutes for Harvest to die, pummeled by an assortment of kicks and blows from boots, fists sticks, rifle butts. When it was all over, and everyone had returned to their ramshackle homes, wives and warm fires, only one blue-eyed 20 year old man stood under the third streetlamp nearly a mile from the first Picket of Kinsbouough's North District. He looked down at the crumpled mass of blood and fur at his feet and slowly reached a hand up to grip the Glare fastened to his neck.
Slow to act and gorged from the night's feast, Argh-ACKth'tuh realized too late what was happening. Before it could pulse another load of poison into the man's bloodstream, it had been squeezed, twisted, pulled -- then slammed to the ground and crushed beneath a steel bootheal.
Brent. That is my name. Brent Hallow.
The tears running down Brent's face mixed with the slow rain that fell from the dark layer of clouds overhead, to settle the shifting motes of dust which had been stirred up that night, August 25th of the year 3145.
He turned and began walking, away from the dark woods, towards the Picket Lines of Kinsborough North.