by A. L. Knorr
“You are becoming tiresome.” Ninurta grabbed Marcus by the front of his shirt and tossed him toward the shed. Marcus flew, landed hard and rolled across the snow, coming to a stop just outside of a yawning bay door. He was slow to rise.
“Surrendering at this point could spare you and your pet no small amount of pain,” Ninurta suggested in that annoyingly unruffled tone.
I took a deep breath and let out a growl. Ambush and brute force hadn’t worked; what did I have left?
My metallic sense buzzed with strange tones and swirling auras that I wouldn’t expect out here. It was more than just the helicopter, the auras resonated as though within reach.
Raising all four wings to shield myself, I reached out with my metallic sense and nearly recoiled as my mind touched Ninurta.
His body seethed with off-key metallic songs, constantly circulating streams of metal in tune with his every movement. He was so suffused with various elements I wasn’t sure there was any difference between living flesh and living metal. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying in equal measure.
My mind felt a pulse of Ninurta’s will at the same time I heard a dark chuckle.
“Do you understand now?” He squared his shoulders and opened his arms as though welcoming the next attack. “Do you have any idea?”
“I have one.”
I threw out my ringed hand, punching not against his body but into the metallic auras with my mind. I gathered them in my mental fist like the strings of a cello and drew them out. It was like wrestling a cyclone out of the sky, but with the rings feeding into my own power, the streams warped and flexed my direction.
I heard a sharp, pained intake of breath.
“What are you doing?”
Ninurta’s roar snapped my eyes open and what I saw startled me so much I nearly lost my grip.
Thin wisps of red steam rose from the demigod’s skin, tiny motes reflecting the moonlight in flashes. The wisps formed thin contrails lazily snaking their way toward me. Staring in amazement at the success of my gambit, I caught a glimpse of Ninurta’s face. Something alien came into his features: fear. For the first time in a very long time, Ninurta, king of mad kings, was scared.
The expression was quickly buried under an avalanche of rage. His glare threatened to light me ablaze, as I felt his power surge outward in a hate-fuelled shockwave.
My attention divided between the metal I drew from his body and what I was seeing, that barest distraction was the chink he drove through, breaking my hold on his living metal. The bloody fog and its cargo of metal particles flew back to Ninurta to be absorbed into his flesh.
“I am no longer amused.” Ninurta’s voice was as hard and flat as a bar of beaten iron.
The rage simmering in his eyes filled me with dread as he stalked forward. I needed to move, but terror numbed my mind and slowed my limbs.
Ninurta didn’t wait for me to pull myself together.
Like a tidal wave his power crashed down on me, folding my wings around me with such force I was knocked flat. The cold slap of snow against the back of my neck broke my shock just as the wings began to contract, razored pinions cutting into my clothes and flesh. With a mental heave I shoved outward, holding them at bay as I fought for control.
The wings twisted around each other in our competing grips, growing more and more mangled. I drew deeply on the power of the rings again and managed to break his hold. Drawing the remains of the wings together like a huge knotted bludgeon, I launched it at Ninurta.
The gnarled metal club spun end over end and I drove it on with all I had until it struck Ninurta full in the chest. Demigod and missile sailed through the air to smash into the helicopter. The side of the aircraft buckled around Ninurta, shards of glass and metal flying, pinning him inside.
He wasn’t beaten, but the fight was over. Cuts from the wings leaked blood over my torn clothes. Pain worked with exhaustion to drain me completely and I struggled to find the strength to climb to my feet.
I looked at Marcus, limping toward me, one of his legs stiff and dragging. He nodded, his battered face fighting to give me an encouraging smile. He was waiting on me, patiently like always.
Ninurta emerged from the ruined aircraft and I felt his anger sizzle through the air like heat rippling off a furnace. He rose not just out of the wreckage but into the air to glare down at us.
Marcus spat and made a staggering throw with his axe, the lopsided missile sailed off into the dark, missing its target.
Ninurta floated toward us, seeming to savour the dread inspired by his slow, sinister approach.
We’d fought hard, but we could still buy more time.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Marcus and I made a lurching retreat back into the utility shed.
Ninurta didn’t stop us. I threw out a lash of power to drag the bay door shut behind us, plunging our world into darkness. Hand in hand we picked our way toward the rear of the shed.
“So this is how you would die then?” Ninurta’s disdain was clear even through the closed door. “Cowering like cornered vermin? You are utterly unworthy of the gifts of my blood!”
“Keep waggin’, gaffer,” Marcus said. “Just keep waggin’ that tongue.”
“I could crush you like a parasite picked from a beast’s back.”
There was a squeal of tortured metal as the walls of the shed buckled inwards. Toolboxes shuddered and jangled, and the two vehicles bounced and skidded towards each other just as Marcus and I passed between them. We sprang clear as they crashed together.
“Or perhaps I could sear you off like a leech.”
The walls stopped collapsing, which was just as well because the escape hatch we’d fashioned in the back of the shed had been reduced to a narrow slit. I felt a change in the metal as the walls began to shimmer and glow. My skin prickled as a wave of heat washed over me.
“Wait,” I urged Marcus, too late.
A searing hiss was followed by a choked back cry of pain, his attempt to open the hatch thwarted.
The glow of the walls grew as the heat intensified as Marcus stuffed his burned fingers into his mouth, no doubt to cool them as well as muffle any further cries of pain. The room continued to brighten as the temperature rose, making it hard to breathe.
My vision began to blur, spots springing up in my field of vision as I tried to gather the focus it would take to open the hatch with my powers. My heart hammered in my ears as I gasped, the air seeming terribly thin.
Marcus crumpled next to me, and I realised with a drowsy blink that I was on my knees on the dirt floor. I smelled smoke and realised with a level of calm that was entirely inappropriate that the smoke was coming from me: wisps rose from my clothes, my skin, and the ends of my hair.
“Or perhaps something more dramatic.” Ninurta’s voice came from somewhere far off.
The temperature dropped as the glow receded from the walls.
“Yes, perhaps I should introduce you and these hallowed witnesses to the power that brought the proud kings of Mesopotamia to their knees. Listen now to your coming death, and despair. Don’t worry; I’ll give you plenty of time.”
The portal was fading from sight as I fought for consciousness. My limbs felt as heavy as lead weights.
Somewhere high, high above the shed, I heard a strange sound.
“Now you will come to understand the power you so foolishly scorned!” Ninurta bellowed as the sound grew.
“Give it a rest,” I said, beginning to sink down on top of Marcus.
He wasn’t holding me, but touching him was good enough. Here at the end.
A rush of cold, clean air slapped my face and punched its way into my shrivelled lungs. I found the strength to lift my head and see that the hatch had been opened. Moonlight sparkled on a pool of melted snow. It was beautiful.
A figure, nothing more than a silhouette, passed through the portal. Outside, the strange sound was growing.
“Get up,” hissed a voice. My oxygen-starved brain struggl
ed to remember it, I’d heard it before.
Hands gripped me, dragging me to my feet.
“Ibby please!” the voice begged.
With a groan I compelled my muscles into service.
I staggered a few steps through the open portal. Looking up at the now open sky, a star streaked through the heavens. Ninurta’s words bubbled up in my mind: it was coming straight toward us.
I swung around drunkenly, almost keeling over in the mud.
“Marcus!” I croaked through a desiccated throat.
A woman emerged from the hatch dragging Marcus by the arm.
Stumbling over my own feet, I went to help her. Together we yanked Marcus through the hatch and into the frigid mud. The cold and wet impact startled Marcus into a coughing wakefulness. We each got under an arm and started an ungainly run into the woods behind the shed.
The winter air stung my lungs but cleared my head. I looked over at our rescuer in the dapples of moonlight between the tree branches.
Daria looked back at me, eyes wide with fear. “Run! Don’t talk!”
I looked back just as we dropped down into a small valley – to see the falling star strike the shed behind us.
Trees groaned and bent as a ripping wind tore at their tops and the world erupted in fire.
14
We ran through burning trees, Marcus somehow getting his legs under him, which was good because the man was ridiculously heavy.
Snow hissed into churning clouds of steam. The world was wreathed in a cold fog that clung to the skin like slime. The fog mixed with ash and smoke to smother and choke. My head swam with the madness of the situation, but there was no time to figure it out.
So I ran.
My foot caught on a root and I pitched forward, sliding across the ground. At least there was no pain. I was too numb for that. Wheezing, I tried to force air into my lungs, utterly convinced that I had nothing left. Looking up, I saw Marcus and Daria staggering back to get me.
Marcus’s features were stamped with exhaustion and Daria hunched over, eyes darting everywhere, as though terrified Ninurta might appear from any direction. I drove my fists down as I fought to rise.
“Nearly there.” Daria slipped a hand under my arm and helped me up.
I found my feet again, moving shoulder to shoulder across a speckled, snowy landscape scattered with trees. I wanted to ask where we nearly were but couldn’t find the energy for words.
We continued to run until the trees began to spread and we found ourselves trudging through snow in an open field that sloped gently downward. I sobbed a cry of thankfulness, fighting to keep my legs from collapsing. At the bottom of the slope, a military type Land Rover sat with its engine growling softly.
“Come on!” Daria called, plunging through the snow toward the vehicle.
I slowed to an inching stagger.
“Who is she?” Marcus asked, seeming all too happy to adopt my slower pace.
Daria reached the vehicle and turned to beckon us on before throwing open the driver’s door.
“She was a friend, once.” I slid over to give Marcus what little support my shoulder could offer.
“Can we trust her?”
Marcus gasped a curse as he came down on his damaged leg.
“I don’t know.”
I looked back to the horizon of burning trees.
“I’m not sure we have a choice. She at least seems determined to get us out of here.”
“I’ll take it.”
We reached the Land Rover and I helped Marcus climb into the tarp draped bed. We were breathless by the time we were settled against the back of the bed.
Daria appeared at the tailgate and gave us a once over.
“Both need medical attention,” she declared, presumably into a communication device, her tone clipped and frustrated. “There’s no time. Need to make distance.”
She slammed the tailgate shut, then climbed into the driver’s seat.
The idling motor roared to life.
My mind told me to be wary: stay alert, remember what Daria is, remember what she had done.
My body decided it needed sleep more. Within minutes I was dozing, curled up next to Marcus and rocked into blessed oblivion by the bouncing gait of the vehicle.
---
I awoke on the ground, naked from the waist up, with a glaring light sweeping from my face down over my body and back again. Everything else was darkness.
I tried to twist my body away from the revealing light, but I only managed a fitful twitch before I collapsed back onto the ground.
“Hold still,” Daria’s voice instructed from behind the light. “After I’ve cleaned the wounds and bandaged them, you can move.”
Her matter of fact direction irked me to a degree far beyond what her words merited, but I found I couldn’t even will my mouth to open and curse her.
I felt her working on my body, swabbing the lacerations from my crushed wings, but it was an awareness of pressure and changes in temperature. There was no pain, which was a discomfort of its own.
I lay there, completely helpless, as she wrapped my wounds and applied salve to the burns on my neck, face, and hands. The vulnerability ate at me.
Daria nodded once she had completed her ministrations and I felt something cold and sharp slide free from my neck. As the intrusion into my body withdrew, I was reminded of another such a violation by an edimmu.
In control of my body once more, I rolled away from her, knocking the cast-off medical supplies in every direction. I climbed to my feet clumsily, one hand cocked back in a fist while the other was held out with a warding palm. My metallic sense swept around for anything I might use as a weapon.
“Ibby, wait.” Daria rose from her crouch, her headlamp stabbing into my eyes. She put out a hand. “It’s alright. Calm down.”
Several steel chains were close at hand, the Land Rover a few feet to my left. I drew the snarled chains up, setting their links to clinking as they swung menacingly around me. The bandages around my chest made it hard to draw a full breath, but I sucked in enough air to loose a warning through bared teeth.
“How dare you!” I spat. “You pumped your poison through me!”
Daria was a vague silhouette, but her hands rose palms up in surrender.
“I’m sorry.” She slid back as the chains rattled like Jacob Marley’s. “I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t hurt yourself when you came to.”
“What are these for then?” I demanded, shaking the chains as they orbited me. “If the poison didn’t work, were you going to chain me up like an animal?”
Daria stared before responding in a flat, dry tone.
“Those are the snow chains for the Land Rover, and I think it would be incredibly stupid to try and bind an Inconquo with metal chains, don’t you?”
Allowing the chains to sink to the floor, I had enough sense to feel sheepish, though I still held the links in my mental grip. Looking around I saw nothing but darkness except where Daria’s lamp revealed a bare and grungy expanse of concrete. Gooseflesh crept along my arms and threatened to engulf the rest of me.
“Where are we?”
“An abandoned garage near Raylees,” Daria answered. “I’ve got a plane chartered from Eshott Airfield in a couple of hours, but the roads were getting treacherous and I needed to check your injuries. I still need to look at Marcus’ leg.”
It all made sense, but the memory of everything Daria had put us through, combined with what Ninurta had told me, left me more than a little suspicious.
“How do you know who Marcus is?”
Daria let out a small sigh before answering, her voice strained with forced patience.
“He told me. He was awake when we got here and insisted I look after you first. He wanted to watch over you but he fell asleep.” She cocked her head toward the Land Rover.
I flinched a little as she crouched, then felt silly when she stood with a dangling lump of fabric.
“You should get dressed.” She h
eld out my clothes. “We need to get you clean ones, but they’ll at least keep you warm until we’re in the air.”
I dressed as Daria moved to the back of the Land Rover.
“Why is it so dark?”
“The garage gets used as a flophouse from time to time,” Daria explained as she climbed into the bed of the vehicle. “So they blacked out the windows. Can’t have nosey people peeping in on their recreational activities.”
My shoe scuffed against something that gave a brittle crunch, and I cringed, hoping I wasn’t scooting around spent hypodermics.
“Charming.”
I watched her do a quick inspection of Marcus’s twisted leg before drawing out a pair of bandage scissors.
“It’s clear.” She began cutting up the length of the injured leg’s trouser. “I wouldn’t walk around barefoot, but I think I cleaned out the space around the Land Rover well enough.”
To my amazement, Marcus didn’t stir as she slit the garment all the way to his grey underpants. Quick and precise, she yanked the liberated fabric away, revealing his muscled leg. His knee was swollen and the colour of a plum – all that strength hadn’t spared him serious injury.
I swallowed a sob as Daria tentatively probed the distended purple skin that seemed ready to split open. Marcus shuddered and let out a low moan at the touch, but didn’t wake up.
“Running on the leg didn’t do him any favours, but I don’t think there is a fracture.”
Daria did something at her waist before I heard the clink of a belt buckle and she shifted toward Marcus’s face. She shook his shoulder, and when he didn’t respond slapped lightly at his cheek until his eyes fluttered open.
“Huh? What?” he muttered thickly, squinting up at the light.
“Open your mouth.”
“What f-uph,” was all he managed before she stuffed the folded strap of her belt into his mouth.
Daria moved towards his knee with a relentless insistence. I saw what was coming just before her hands braced his knee on either side.
“Bite down hard!”
Her hands went into action and there was a wet, almost wooden, pop.
