The Withered Land, The Empire Falls: ABYSSIUM

ABYSSIUM, Part Two

Syngemma, tall, tanned, heavily-muscled and blonde, adjusted the crossed-bandolier harness holding the sheathes for the twin broadswords she wore down her back and, as was her usual habit when she was anxious, absentmindedly fingered the curved edges of the quintet of small, pearl-sized skin scarifications along the rear of her left cheekbone. The tattoo design of a twisting coil of black-ink ran down the exposed flesh of both her sinewy arms. She was a strapping woman of Amazonian proportions, staring a challenge out at the world through glittering golden eyes with a razor-thin red corona encircling the irises. And though her flesh was, in many places, marked by old and faded scars from past battles, she was nonetheless arresting for the haughtiness of her feminine beauty. The short-cut, belted, iron-colored, leather tunic-dress she wore was festooned with a colorful, geometric serpent design. A slim, needle-flechette pistol was tucked into the tunic's belt. There was nothing about her that hinted at the regimented, disciplined rigors of a military background and most who met her automatically assumed she was a bandit from the Wastes.

Taran'Gaohnge, the Blind Watchman, was something else altogether. Taran was a lanky, rangy man wrapped in a fur-collared, red cloak that fell to the middle of his leather booted shins. The boots themselves were adorned with multiple, silver-buckled straps. Each of the tall boots had sheathes into which a dagger knife with an ornately-carved handle was set. The Watchman's loose-fitting, ochre-colored, multi-pocketed trousers were held up at the midriff by a chain-mail waist sash onto which a large circular medallion was affixed. The face of the chrome medallion was decorated with the bas-relief image of a phoenix, wings spread wide, and the end of a leather strap was tucked behind that medallion. The leather strap was looped through the holster of a very thick, triple-barreled black and copper-hued hand gun. Taran's muscular torso was exposed and bare and a series of dark metal rings had been implanted into his flesh. From each ring dangled a section of animal bone on a short plastic thread. His thick arms were wrapped in steel-studded leather bindings, from his bicep down to his wrists. The Blind Watchman's long, angular face, or at least that part of which was visible under his cloak's hood of maroon hue, was partly covered by a metal half-mask that hid his forehead and eyes.

Taran'Gaohnge and Syngemma Krede made quite a visually arresting pair, grim-looking and wild, threatening, and most people at the Hookara'ie Wadi station-terminus happily gave them a wide berth.

They were waiting for a "shoot-team", a trio of troopers from the Special Operations Counter-Insurgency Forces, who were better known as "The Nahztreme", and a pair of transplanted Outland Marshals, assigned to her and the Blind Watchman as they made their way in from the Wild Zone.  The "Wild Zone" was where the invading forces of the Gorgahnuns had established a moonside-landing beach head. Syngemma Krede and Taran'Gaohnge, by virtue of their profession as outlaw freelancers, had uncovered heretofore unknown strategic military information they sought to share with Pex'Insava's Hegemonic Emperium military forces --- for a price.

"Better get ready. They're nearly here," Taran intoned in his odd, whispery, rough-edged baritone.

Syngemma drew in a deep breath and stepped a single stride forward into the sun's glare, away from the ruins and from the seven story wall of rock towering behind them. The short kurgan-side cliff-face stared out at a huge acreage of open tundra lying between Tuwerbleek Atun and the winding road leading away from the old, abandoned secure station-terminus. After the intense time period she'd now spent as his partner, she'd become accustomed to Taran's abrupt pronouncements. She'd learned to appreciate his psychic gift of temporal foresight in the field.

"Anything we need to worry about?" she asked.

"Maybe. The brothers."

"Brothers?" she said, startled.