I’ve been working on this story for over a year now. It’s currently on its eleventh or so draft, and will eventually be used for my MFA submission. Until I’ve sent it off to the various universities I intend to apply to, however, I won’t be publishing the story online—there’s just too much work that still needs to go into it. But in the meanwhile, if only to satiate my own burning desire to share at least a portion of the story, here is the second scene. Prose subject to change, obviously—this is still a work in progress.
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Naphtali slipped back through the slums until she found herself on the far end of West Nazca, a few blocks shy of where the city abruptly ended and the Wasteland began. She stood outside the hovel she was last sure Ky kept. She entered without fuss, the front door not even locked, and climbed her way up the splintered, dilapidated stairs to the fifth floor, to the cubby hole where Ky used to flop. The hallway was all warped rotted wood and broken glass. She found Ky’s door at the far end. It was cracked open. Suddenly she wished she’d swung by her place for her sword. She approached quietly, reached out and pushed the door open a bit further, rusted hinges whining in strain, and slipped inside.
Kizler’s apartment was a wreck. Tables and chairs were knocked over, books and lamps and various possessions strewn about. Either Ky’s problems started here last night and ended back in that alley or someone had turned this place over, looking for money, perhaps, or something of value to hock if Ky was in as deep with the bindwa trade as Reyne suggested.
As she crossed towards the center of the apartment, she heard the faint creak of a floor board come from Ky’s bedroom. She looked up, felt her muscles tense instinctively. She approached the door slowly, crouched low.
The door burst open in storm of wood splinters and broken framing, and threw Naphtali on her back. She got upright just in time to see a dark-dressed man, face masked by a bandana, coming at her with a short sword. She rolled to the side and kicked one leg out, brutally striking the attacker’s ankle. He cried out and fell to his knees.
He got up fast, just as Naphtali was rising, and rushed her. He swung his sword in a flat arc, which she narrowly evaded. When it cleared she closed the gap between them, locking his blade arm between their bodies. Grabbed his sword arm’s wrist and twisted it viciously until she heard his wrist bone snap. The sword dropped.
Naphtali swung her elbow, a bone-jarring strike to the man’s temple. He stumbled away, but not before throwing out a wild haymaker that clipped Naphtali’s mouth. She fell to the floor, reaching out on impulse and wrapping her fingers around the spine of what felt like a leather-bound book. Sprang back up and smashed it into her attacker’s face just as he thrust his fist into her solar plexus. She felt the air explode out of her lungs. Dizzy, disoriented, she staggered away frantically, putting space between herself and her attacker. He came at her straight on. She knocked aside his sloppy punch and delivered a series of short blows to his neck and face. Another burst of pain as his boot crashed into her chest, sending her flying back in a heap.
She flipped to her stomach, hands scrambling across the torn-up wood floor in search of something to use as a weapon. Found purchase on the handle of the attacker’s lost short sword. She pushed herself upright, adrenaline cranked high. The masked man was back on his feet, a small, pocket-sized knife in his hand. He came at her with a series of wild swings. One of them caught home, slicing through her shoulder. But as the blade cleared the attacker left his midrift wide open.
Naphtali threw all her weight into the thrust and sunk the short sword into his stomach at an upwards angle. Felt the hilt jolt to a halt against one of his ribs. The attacker coughed blood, soaking his bandana with a deeper, wet stain of black. Naphtali wrenched the blade free and dropped down on one knee, burying it into his femoral artery. He toppled back, choking and gurgling on his own blood.
Naphtali fell back on her haunches, breathing heavily. She prodded the wound on her shoulder and hissed in pain. Turned over on her hands and vomited fiercely. She allowed herself to catch her breath, wiped her mouth with her duster’s sleeve, then with a bit of struggle, rose to her feet and approached the dying man, who looked past her, seeing only what the soon dead can see. She fished through his pockets, searched him thoroughly. Tore off his bandana. Nothing stood out to her. Just your average merc at first glance—and an ugly son of a bitch at that. Then something caught her eye—a marking. A tattoo poking just above the collar of his tunic. She tore the section of the tunic away.
Malrain—Malagan rebels. She recognized their insignia. The ink on his collarbone was indistinguishable.
“Bindwa my fuckin’ ass,” she spat in a hoarse cough. “What did you get yourself into, Ky?”
