Akeldama | lrh

fourteen - blade

"Childhood dotted with bodies.

Let them go, let them
be ghosts.

No, I said,
make them stay, make them stone."

•••

Carlton Blake rubs aggressively at the grease on his longsword, trying to do anything that will take his mind off the situation at hand. The others are out trying to connect to the surrounding bases, attempting to locate Jason Warner, and doing God knows what. At the moment they are totally alone, nobody to help them and nobody to guide them.

The thing was his first earned weapon in his time with the military, and it still reminds him of his training days. It's a simple silver blade, long but strong, with a rounded hilt designed for precision strikes. A blue ruby rests in the bottom handle, black leather wrapping around its grip.

He wants to drive it through the throat of Nasim Kieran. And anybody that possibly had anything to do with the bombings.

"Soldier Blake." Jacksons voice sounds from the opening of the tent, but Carlton doesn't look up.

"More bad news?" He replies, finally getting a stubborn streak of black off the edge of his blade.

"Yes and no."

Now he looks up. "Let me hear it, then."

"According to the satellite images that came through last night, four of the eight Hawaiian islands are untouched by the bombings. The four smallest ones. They seem completely fine, but since we have no access to a hovercraft there's no way we can go investigate."

Carlton inwardly sighs. That does no help to his family. Sure, it's good that those four islands survived and people didn't die on them, but it still does nothing to help the massive knot of worry growing inside him.

"What are we going to do about it then?"

"We're working on locating a boat. Or stealing a hovercraft from one of the nearest enemy bases. It's the only chance we have."

Carlton closes his eyes, swallowing down his conflicting feelings of disappointment and excitement. "Ok."

***

"Luke."

The boy doesn't look up. He's leaning over the sheets of paper they made the other day, his fingers tracing the lines of the map obsessively. It's well past midnight. He's still bleeding and bandages on his torso are clearly not holding up well, but he doesn't seem to care.

"Luke." Ivy says again, irritation creeping into her voice despite her vow to stay calm. They're in the same alcove he was treated in, because it's the only place she could think of he would be. It's a tiny room, with thick wooden walls enforced with tin on the outside. She came here earlier on his request, thinking he would want to talk, but all he did was bark out directions on where they were supposed to go the second he was better.

"Ivy, I'm a bit tied up right now." Luke finally wretches his blue eyes away from the paper to glare at her. "Unless you have important news or want to train, please leave."