The Unnamed Wanderer

He whistled as he walked, every left step accompanied by the soft thud of a walking stick held in his opposite hand, or was a bow, yes, a bow. He held an unstrung bow, standing at least a head taller than he was. The pleasant tune he whistled echoed off the toppled brick building to his right, and the standing concrete building's columns to his left. What once was grey concrete was now covered with dirt and grime so intensely it produced a faded yellow with green at the base where the building touched the brick walkway. Moss stretched its way along a deep crack toward the roof of the structure. The path was lined with concrete boxes covered in stone veneer, which at one point, held flowers and not grayish soil and dead trees. What used to be a beautiful pedestrian walking mall was now littered with loose bricks from the collapsed building, piles of trash, and small animals like the rabbit running past his path now.

The man was tall, tanned from long days on the road, strong from countless years of toil, a rough dark beard covered his weathered face. His belt was a clattering mess of trinkets and tools, a knife at least 9 inches in length dangled from his right side, a leather cartridge box of sturdy construction rested just behind that. The back of his belt was occupied by a canteen, and on the left side was a thick leather holster which held a remnant of a bygone era, “a revolver it’s called, a cannon of the hand” said the wandering trader, an old man with a long white beard and deep lines in his face he had a pack mule with him the wanderer recalled, the only one he had ever seen. Covering his belt was a dark oilcloth that flared out just below the knees he wore the hood down. Across his back was a tightly packed canvas sack fashioned into a backpack, and strapped to it was a tube of plastic sealed at the bottom and painted black, this acted as a quiver and had feather fletchings along wooden shafts poking up from the dark tube.

The man couldn’t help but wonder, how long had it been since these quaint stores echoed a song? How long had these bricks gone without being graced with the touch of an instrument's gentle chord? Surely there had been such affairs before… his train of thought was stopped in its tracks by the sound he almost swore he heard, no he knew it, didn’t he? A spine-tingling eeriness grew over the abandoned mall as the echo of the wanderer’s whistle escaped its wide corridor as if the tune wanted to flee the brick corridor before anything bad happened as if it sought escape just as much as the man did at that moment. He stood silently, and slowly turned the bow around, braced it against his foot, and in a smooth push-pull motion one hand on the handle the other sliding the top string loop up, he strung the bow. He now held the bow in his left hand still scanning the wide corridor and narrow alleyways between buildings, he slowly reached with his right hand behind his right shoulder, he pinched a knock of an arrow between his thumb and forefinger and drew it up over his body until it lay in front of him knocking it against the twine knock point he had tied on. The broadheads the man used consisted of two blades, the edges polished to a mirror finish. He breathed quietly.

The distinct radio chatter of a squad of syndicate enforcers was as clear as day now, the color escaped the man’s face as he heard the several pairs of boots pounding in the distance and the shouting of commands. A dismounted squad of enforcers was dispatched for one purpose, the man thought, a hunt, and they knew they were close, or they wouldn’t be moving so quickly. How did they find me? That house there, I could board the windows, it has a side door, a second floor with windows, the man thought quickly. The wanderer was ten strides into his sprint for the door when he heard the scream. At first, it was confusion that struck the man’s face, then a huge sigh of relief exploded from his chest. They’re not after me, they haven’t found me, if anything they’ll be easier to slip by now because I can hear them, his thoughts calmed. He put the arrow in its quiver, turned his bow around, and braced it against his foot preparing to unstring it, as he leaned forward preparing the strong muscles of his arms to push and pull the bow, his necklace fell from behind his undershirt. A heart-shaped locket, coated in silver and gleaming in the mid-morning sun. His expression of relief faded as he stared dumbly at his heirloom. His coarse voice added to the commotion of the enforcers undergoing a chase “Aw c’mon,” he let out a sign which contained much less relief while standing back up, he put a hand on the top of his bow and looked down at his locket, “I know what’d you’d want me to do” his voice was deep and quiet, barely a whisper “but it very well might get me killed this time.” He kissed the locket and tucked it away.

I never did like to run, he thought while chasing a sound through winding streets. His canter was complemented by the rattle of arrow shafts on one another, and the smack of leather pouches and holsters on his waist. The tired muscles of the man’s legs ached, his worn knees burned, he fought them for every stride down the new street he turned down. Another scream pierced through the now eerily close chatter of radios, occurring directly after the twang of syndicate scorcher.

The scorcher was a piece of engineering genius, allowing a foot soldier to carry a railgun in two hands, which uses an electromagnetic pulse to fire a projectile at incredible speeds. This rifle was an enforcer's main armament a sleek black rifle accented by the bright blue lines along the left and right of the stock. The black and blue of the scorcher matched the uniform of the enforcers almost identically, the enforcers wore black suits accented by blue on their helmets and bodies.

The man left the road he was on and entered the overgrown expanse of trees that was once a park at the heart of the city's heart. He stopped to breathe a couple of hundred strides down the path made by overarching trees above and around him. He bent over putting the bottom of his bow on the ground to steady himself, sweat trickled down his back uncomfortably, the thick muscles of his lower back twitched as the stream flowed past. The wanderer reached up to brush the sweat away from his eyes and looked up to see in the dark shadows of the arching trees, a set of bright blue lights faintly visible, wobbling and coming straight at him. “Aw, fuck me,” the man groaned as he lowered himself to the ground quickly unshouldering his pack and rummaging through it, after finding what he needed he placed an object on the ground on the left side of the road where he sat and concealed it with brush, and wasting no time, he bolted for the trees to his right while unwinding a spool of cord.

He drew an arrow as he planted his back against a large oak tree ten steps from the path, the cord now tied to the base of the tree he concealed himself behind. A minute passed, or was it two? He stood vigilant, listening, waiting, a bow with a knocked arrow in his steady left hand. The footsteps grew closer, a hundred yards away? Was it fifty? Then it stopped, no more chase, just loud voices and radios buzzing.

The man hesitated, did they kill the escapee, or have they spotted me? He leaned, ever so slightly around the tree and saw a girl with an enforcer on top of her in the middle of the dirt trail, her long red hair covered in leaves and mud. They’re twenty yards down the path at least, the man thought. The rest of the enforcers stood around the girl talking loudly and talking on radios. There are only four, which means they split the squad into fireteams to search for this girl, that also means that the other fire team and squad leader aren’t far behind. Lacking any better idea, and needing to think quickly, the man stepped into the path. This caused the fire team of men to all stare dumbfounded through the unblinking bright blue eyes of their helmets. One decided to raise his scorcher towards the newcomer, and the rest followed in suit. “Raise your hands above your head!” Shouted a man with a grizzled voice of a veteran accustomed to being obeyed. The wanderer did not put his hands above his head he instead turned around and walked slowly away. The confused enforcers glanced at each other. “Stop fucking moving!” Shouted the same veteran. The wanderer moved off the trail, into the woods, jogging enforcers with raised scorchers followed him down the path. Two stayed behind with the girl who was squirming uncomfortably against her new restraints. They stood laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation until they heard the explosion.

They turned to see two of their comrades, the first an unmoving green private on his first mission, the other, a sergeant and a veteran of ten years, writhing and bloody on the ground gasping for air that the bomb had stolen from them. One enforcer could not contain himself and bolted for his wounded brothers-in-arms “Corporal wait!” the enforcer standing over the girl shouted, anxiously standing guard beside her. The running enforcer took off his helmet when he reached the veteran, “god, oh god, sergeant,” he said as his shaking hands removing the veteran’s helmet. The sergeant's bloody contorted face looked back up into the younger man’s eyes “Corporal McCormick,” the voice was a groan of pain “you need to call sergeant Desmond, you need the rest of the squad, my radio got fried in that explosion.” The corporal nodded, “If I don’t make it tell my wife…” the conversation was cut short by the crack of an arrow, one that found a home through the back of the corporal’s skull. Now coated in blood, the broadhead found its new home in the dirt as the limp corporal fell over the bleeding veteran’s body. The broken sergeant screamed in pain and anger, powerless to move the body. The last enforcer watched this in terror not twenty yards away. The enforcer franticly scanned the woods with his scorcher, forgetting about the young girl lying beside him. A thud rang from behind the man, he whirled to see a rock in the road, and the tree it had bounced against. He felt the impact before he heard anything, a tackle from behind sending his scorcher flying, an older man in a dark cloak landed on top of him, the man ripped his helmet off with such force he didn’t have time to stop the attempt, just as he began to reach for his sidearm along his thigh the knife was already in his neck. Confusion covered the dying man's face as he touched his neck, he laid squirming in a growing pool of his blood. The wanderer cut the restraints off the scared girl, “get up, grab that” he gestured to the scorcher. “Who, who are you?” asked the girl nervously “we need to leave, now, pick that up and get moving”.

They talked as they walked, far away from the city with a forgotten name, towards a safer place, towards a new home.