WARP world (69 page)

Seg gaped at the man’s back. Did he seriously believe that he would just invite himself along? He started to hobble after the insolent bastard, but was intercepted by Ama as she moved to his side.

“I’ve said my goodbyes,” she beamed. “Except for Brin. I still have time, don’t I?”

Seg stopped and sucked in a deep breath as he mustered his courage. He stared at the shifting colors of the warp gate and didn’t dare to meet her eyes. “Plenty,” he said, “because you’re staying here.”

“What?” Ama maneuvered herself so that Seg couldn’t escape her gaze. “No. I’m coming with you, like we talked about. We’re going to explore other worlds, we’re—”

He blinked rapidly at her, his face falling. “My World will kill you, Ama. You belong here,” he gestured with his free arm to the trees and water, “where the life is.”

“I know where I belong.” She stepped up closer to him and lowered her voice. “I thought you were dead, back there. I thought I watched you die. Why do you think I did this?” she jabbed a finger toward her bandaged shoulder, “Because I didn’t care. I don’t want a life without you, whatever that may mean. I belong with you.”

He thought back to the words Jarin had spoken to him, and could not find fault in the old man’s logic. The whispers and derision of his peers did not concern him–he had known that prejudice since he was a child. But Ama—she deserved better.

As Jarin had warned, they were caught up in the grasp of hormonal pull, and it was incumbent upon him to be the rational one. But, as he looked into her eyes, he couldn’t summon the words. For the first time in his life, he found himself facing an opponent that he couldn’t fairly out-argue.

“You’re right,” he finally conceded and lifted his hand to take hers. The look of relief on her face sent a stab of guilt through him as he triggered the stunner and dropped her to her knees. He nearly overbalanced himself as he struggled to let her down as gently as possible.

Sometimes words were not the appropriate answer.

Seg turned toward the warp gate, but his path was halted by the point of a seft pressed to his lower back. He half expected to hear Ama ordering him off her boat.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Geras asked, instead, his tone menacing.

“The stunner was on the lowest setting; she’ll be awake shortly, with no damage,” Seg said, freezing in place. He was in no shape for combat, but he would take a swing with the crutch if it came to it. “Take her home. She’ll find someone else and be better for it. As you wanted.”

“What I wanted,” Geras said, standing taller, “was for my sister to be happy. Unfortunately, she’s happy with you. So, you’ll take her with you.”

“Your entire clan is insane,” Seg grumbled. “If I turn, will you not kill me?” Without waiting for the answer, he shifted himself around to face Geras. “Whatever feelings Ama has developed for me will fade.”

Geras smirked, “You have a lot to learn about my sister. The first boy who ever tried to kiss her walked away with a black eye. She’s been chasing away men ever since. Her family and her boat, that’s all she ever cared about—until you.”

“Listen, I would rather,” Seg started to say, before his voice faltered. “She should…” He shook his head again. “She—”

He looked down at Ama, who was slowly waking from the stun.

“It will be difficult to explain what just happened,” he said at last, his voice a strange blend of hope and sadness.

“My sister seems to do well with
difficult
,” Geras said, with a deliberate eye on Seg.

“What…where…” Ama shook her head, then rose to her feet uncertainly. She looked from Geras to Seg, then down at the seft. “I missed something.”

“We were resolving a few matters,” Seg said. He reached out to Geras, who hesitated a moment before clasping his hand. “Blood for water, Geras Kalder.”

“Blood for water, Segkel Eraranat,” Geras replied.

Seg nodded toward the gate, where the last of the Kenda were filing through. “Go on, Ama. I’ll be right behind you.”

Most of the men were through, Ama hurried to the gate, which glowed even more brilliantly now against the darkened sky.

Brin was waiting on one side of the metal arch. “So, the wild, vagabond captain still roams.”

“To seas undreamed of,” Ama replied, before they embraced. “You’ll be a good leader, cousin,” she said, when she pulled away.

“Seg is right. It is a burden,” he sighed. “This world will miss you, Tadpole. As will I.”

Ama bit her lip and turned her head in the direction of the warp gate. A light, summer rain began to fall. Water from the sky, would she ever know that again?

“Go to him,” Brin said, his voice low.

And so, she did.

The last of the men were through. Seg held out his hand to Ama, to guide her through the warp gate again. There was no need for the gesture, she had been through before. This time there would be no rough decontamination. She actually stepped ahead of him. Nevertheless, he did not let go of her.

His men would be waiting on the other side. Not caj. He had taken them in voluntary service. More like mercenaries. Whatever the men were, he now had a body of warriors to work with to achieve his goals. To change his World.

Ama stepped through the gate, with one final look over her shoulder. He stepped in behind her, taking one last breath of the moist, salty air as he did.

His first raid. It had worked. Not in all particulars, but that was only to be expected. Planning was one thing; life was another.

Life was a bloody business.

 
About the Authors

Kristene Perron
is a former professional stunt performer for film and television (as Kristene Kenward) and a self-described ‘fishing goddess’. Pathologically nomadic, she has lived in Japan, Costa Rica, the Cook Islands and a very tiny key in the Bahamas, just to name a few. Her stories have appeared in
Canadian Storyteller Magazine, The Barbaric Yawp, Hemispheres Magazine
, and
Denizens of the Darkness
, among others. In 2010 she won the Surrey International Writers’ Conference Storyteller Award.

She currently resides in Nelson, BC, Canada but her suitcase is always packed.

A career nomad,
Josh Simpson
has driven trucks through the lower forty-eight states, treated and disposed of hazardous waste, mixed mud as a stonemasonry laborer, failed abysmally in marketing, gotten on people’s nerves as a safety man, and presently gets on their nerves even more using nerve release techniques in musculo-skeletal pain relief.

He lives amidst the scrub and mesquite of West Texas, cohabiting with the requisite writer’s minimum of two cats. Warpworld is his first published novel.

H
ere is an excerpt from
Wasteland Renegades
, the second book in the
Warpworld
series from authors Kristene Perron and Joshua Simpson.

Turn the page and follow Ama, Seg and the Kenda through the warp, to a world fighting for survival from the Storm – a world where orthodoxy rules, change comes at the highest cost, and an unforgiving wasteland holds the only hope of freedom…

Available spring 2013

 
Warpworld:
 
Wasteland Renegades

The World
Year 863 of the Well

G
rand Marshall Devian Bendure held her helmet by its strap, dangling from her hand, as she surveyed the remnants of her forces. Etiphar’s Expeditionary Corps had barely managed to extract the Family Household, and at the cost of three quarters of their troops and riders. She had nearly two hundred troops left, not counting hastily impressed House employees who were little better than fodder for the guns.

Legions. House Etiphar had once been able to call upon entire legions of troops. Their own forces were among the largest of the House armies and, with their financial resources, they could quickly augment themselves with a vast armada of independent raider charters. On a war footing, House Etiphar’s devoted troops and resources would have allowed them to face any potential opponent on the World.

But not the
entire
World.

Now, a rocky outcropping offered the survivors of House Etiphar temporary shelter from their enemies. The wastelands of the World, however, were not a place of safety. The threat of the Storm was minor—their riders were well equipped with Storm cells—it was the land and its inhabitants that gave even the most battle-hardened raider good reason to keep a wary eye on the land, the sky and even the rock. Everything that lived outside the protection of the shielded cities had evolved to survive in an environment of scarce resources and the scourge of the Storm.
Hostile
was barely sufficient as a description for the wastelands.

Danger above, below, and on all sides.

The rider engines growled in low idle. Even now the remaining forces of House Etiphar had to be ready to evacuate, yet again, if their enemies located them before they were ready to make their final move. Technicians labored to repair damaged equipment. Troops checked their weapons, redistributed their ammunition.

House Master Urvish Etiphar, the only Person of authority above her, touched the Grand Marshall’s shoulder lightly. “Will this work?”

She looked at him, mouth open for a moment as she processed the question. “Yes. Yes it will. Julewa Keep can be fortified. We carried away enough anti-rider weaponry to prevent our enemies from attacking directly. We can hold Julewa until the end of time, House Master.”

Their
enemies
, Devian mused, now consisted of nearly the whole of the World’s population.

“Thank you, Devian. I knew I could count on my people. What about the ones living in the Keep?”

Devian shook her head. “Escaped caj and bandits. Julewa’s been abandoned for over two hundred years. Rocks and spit.”