by E M Kaplan
Bookman, standing beside him, cleared his throat. The former trog, who now came up to Ott’s chin level, drew his thin arm back and punched Ott on the shoulder—not a powerful hit, but enough to make him flinch. Ott frowned at him, but Bookman shrugged. Then they averted their eyes, trying not to gaze too long at the private joy of the reunited siblings.
Rav’s expression said what words could not. The broad, white-toothed smile that spread across her face was enough to make more than one of them smile in return, her joy contagious.
Chapter 62
No more trogs came for them that day. The basin had cleared out of living trogs—only a few fallen remained. Their small group had been granted a stay. A momentary peace. Perhaps the beasts were regrouping, intent on amassing their forces further. Maybe Mel and her friends would all die tomorrow.
“Explain to me about these other elements,” Zunee demanded. Mel found Rav’s sister bossy, unyielding, and admirable. Even though Zunee’s face bore the evidence of her battles, its swelling and angry bruises not yet peaking in their lividness, she commanded the attention of everyone else in the camp. But Mel was still trying to heal herself, to conserve energy, so she said nothing and kept still, huddled in a ball under a blanket next to the fire.
They had followed Zunee and her man, Deni, back to their camp only to discover hundreds of anxious people awaiting their return. Cookfires burned in the night across the land near their large tent. Mel had seen drawings of a ya’tuvah in books, but she was delighted to see one in person, though the child called Yanna was quick to tell her it was not as big as their tent at home.
Though most people avoided Ott because of his size, Yanna seemed to have no qualms about seating herself in his lap as he lounged near Mel with his legs stretched out. Though a strip of ground separated them, he’d reached out and intertwined his smallest finger with Mel’s. As the little girl twisted around in his lap to stare at his face, Ott squeezed Mel’s finger and a warmth of affection flooded into her across their connection.
“Why are you so big?”
“Why are you so little?”
Yanna laughed. Then she got up and ran off to her friends, her colorful skirt brushing against her dusty little legs.
“Are you feeling any better at all?” Ott asked Mel. He pulled her against him and the heat emanating off him soothed her more than any campfire could. In truth, she felt miserable, but still half again as better as she had earlier that day. Almost dying made feeling ill seem like nothing.
He ran a finger against her lower lip where a scar had taken shape. For some reason, several wounds on her arms, legs, and face hadn’t healed, and Mel wondered if the taint of agamite poisoning were to blame. If she’d had success at removing the agamite from so many trogs, like Bookman, why would a few grains inside of her own body cause so much damage? Maybe she had been too careless before, and the danger had always existed. In any case, she wouldn’t approach the mineral with quite the same confidence now. Perhaps breathing the steam from the velocycle had done harm.
“Better, that’s for certain,” she assured him. But as he scanned her marked face, he didn’t look convinced. If she’d had more strength at the moment, she would have pushed into him, to prove her point. Plus, she liked to see his face flush with pleasure when she did it. She resisted using her abilities, however, though she doubted a minute or more of rest might make any difference in their odds of surviving the night. But still…she wanted to save everything, so she could give everything if needed.
Chapter 63
The attack came during the night. A sentry that Rav and Zunee had posted on the hill above the camp awakened them with his fearful cries. He’d spotted movement in the basin, thanks to the light of the full moon. Mel rushed to join them, awakening Treyna on her way. The small woman was awake in an instant.
“Go,” Harro said, from the sleeping mat on the floor of their small tent, his voice hoarse. “If I find a way to join you, I’ll be there.” Already, he used his massive arms and shoulders to maneuver himself toward his wheeled chair. “Go,” he said again, this time shouting at the small woman. “You’re needed. Do what you’re meant to do.”
Mel guided Trenya toward the hill on which Zunee and the others had gathered. In the bright light of the night, clouds of desert dust rose underfoot from their hurried steps. Ott was there, double-sided axe in his hands, at attention though inactive. The trogs were still a good distance away, and he was best at hand-to-hand. The two sisters were the only others on the hill.
“Show us what you can do,” Rav told her sister, nodding toward the advancing formation of trogs that came from the northeast. They’d gotten a good taste of the young woman’s skills, but it was a marvel to be able to observe what she could do. Mel edged closer to get a better look, just in time to see Zunee inhale a great breath and seem to blow it out in the direction of the first wave of trogs. Of course, now was not the proper time to ask if Mel could seek through Zunee to find the cause of her abilities. Perhaps later, she’d allow Mel to determine whether agamite played a role in it…
Zunee’s breath swept away the trogs as if they were leaves in a storm. Mel breathed with her. The young woman took another breath and cleared away the second row of trogs. Yet more approached.
“Lutra on a spit. Where do they come from?” Ott groaned.
Zunee had moved another row before they realized that a secondary formation of trogs advanced from the northwest. Dropping from the steeper ledges of sandstone cliffs, they trickled closer in an uneven, scattered wave. Zunee was mid-exhale when Treyna stepped forward, both fists clenched. With a noise under her breath that sounded half-growl, half-hum to Mel, Treyna flung her hands wide open, as if flicking off heavy mud from her fingers. Far in the distance, chunks of sandstone collapsed on the northwest influx of trogs, crushing a good number of them. A small victory, but quickly lost as another wave replaced the first.
Behind them, Deni sprinted toward them from the camp. “Something comes from the water,” he yelled. It was then Mel realized he was not alone. Following him, Bookman led the rest of the camp toward them. Children and feeble-bodied among them. Harro wheeled his chair with powerful strokes of his arms. Mel squinted—the swing with baby Salva was strapped across the man’s chest while Bookman led the others closer.
Ott had begun to wave his arms at them. “Go back. We’ll be surrounded in no time.”
Mel laid a hand on his arm. “Too late,” she said.
He grasped his axe in a tight fist now, and tucked her behind him and to the side. His gaze moved back and forth from the trogs to two sides, and now to the unknown threat coming from the river.
“What is it?” he asked Bookman. As they stared in the direction of the river, a roaring, crashing sound became more evident to Mel. Like the crash of water on rocks, she thought. Yet more rhythmic. Ott swiveled to assess the trogs, turning her behind him again.
To the east beyond the people fleeing the camp, Mel saw a dark shape on the horizon. In the blue brightness of the moonlight, the top of it shimmered. It looked like a flood at first, as if the river were jumping its banks and coming straight for them. But as her vision cleared and the thing came more into focus, it grew taller. And higher still, the closer it came. All at once, she detected a gait. As if it were…walking.
Something like a head came into focus—and if it were a head, it signified an enormous body. The sloshing, roaring noise grew louder. The creature grew larger and larger as it drew near, until it stood a good five men tall. Its body wavered and undulated, and Mel’s eyes widened in recognition of its watery composition. As it neared the crowd of people, panic broke out. A wave of hot, humid air blew across them—a strange, unsettling feeling in a desert—and screams erupted from the people. The creature lunged at them, and Ott ran toward it, axe ready.
At the same time, Mel spun around, and stared at the center of the basin, near the flat stone in the middle. She’d heard a strange sound—sensed something—and as she watched, the s
and begin to vibrate.
“What in the world now?” she said, her words drowned out by the screams and chaos all around her.
The central stone began to shift and slide to the side. The ground underneath it quaked and undulated, the sand falling away. Then it exploded outward, as a gigantic spire emerged from the sand. One spire and then four more—a hand, trog-colored. Yet not a hand. This palm could easy hold a half dozen trogs. As it clawed its way out of the ground, another hand came as well. The sand burst away as the new creature rose up into the night sky.
“Is that your elemental?” Mel shouted at Treyna. But the girl looked pale as she shook her head no. Not terrata? What was it?
Shoulders rose above the ground, and Mel’s stomach dropped. Her knees loosened as she lost control of her breath. A trog—the king of all trogs—braced its mighty fists on the sides of the tunnel and wrenched its body the rest of the way out of the desert floor. She sank to her knees. More screams sounded behind her, but she didn’t know if they came from the water creature or the gerent trog.
Did it matter? They were dead for certain.
Chapter 64
“Mel!” Ott’s voice. He ran up from behind her, and she was confused. Why wasn’t he engaging the water monster? “Look who it is.” He had grasped her by the shoulders and helped her stand. Then he spun her around.
The water creature had stooped over and was roaring out a gale of steamy breath on their people, an image frightening enough to make Mel want to hide her head and wish she could wake up from this never-ending nightmare. The creature dropped to one knee and held out its translucent hand. As Mel watched in disbelief, Jaine stepped down, out of its grasp. The Tooranan girl’s eyes widened as she saw Ott and Mel. She ran toward them, yelling, “How did you get here before us? Have we missed everything?”
“We?” Mel said, looking at the creature. Water. Perhaps it was another elemental?
Jaine gestured over her shoulder. “Once I got those two lovebirds to stop quarreling, we made good time here. What can we do?”
Lovebirds?
“Marget and Charl,” Jaine clarified, and Mel could feel her jaw loosen in surprise. Combined elementals? This development was beyond all of her theorizing.
Zunee shouted for help. Her gusts of wind were no match for the trog king.
“Great God above,” Jaine said and fell silent.
In two strides, he would be upon them.
Rav stepped forward and whispered in her sister’s ear. Then the two of them clasped hands. Inside the basin of trogs, where their king towered above them, the wind rose and swirled, gathering the loose sand in its gusts. A sandstorm formed, rising, writhing, and twisting. It grew tendrils that whipped and lashed at the trog, who roared and batted at it.
The ground vibrated and shook, knocking many of the camp people to the ground. On her knees already, Mel didn’t stumble. A thud behind them, and then a thud in front of them as the water creature leapt into the basin to grapple with the trog.
The trogs on the ground were swept away by wind and blistered by steam. The few remaining trogs on the ground were buried by Treyna’s treacherous landslides and crumbling cliffs. The young woman stood on the hill alone, clenching her fists, releasing them, her head bobbing from fatigue.
In this singular moment of chaos, Mel found herself…filled with compassion. No one should stand alone in a place like this. Moving without further thought, she took the place behind the smaller woman, and put her hands on Treyna’s shoulders as she had done for Zunee the day before. Mel intended to lend Treyna her strength—as diminished as it was—so she drew on her reserves and pushed into her.
Treyna flinched and squirmed out of Mel’s grasp. Casting an angry glare at Mel, she said, “What are you doing? Don’t touch me.”
Mel raised her hands in protest. “I only meant to help. Please, let me help you.”
“I don’t need help.”
Mel didn’t argue, though Treyna’s slack face contradicted her words. The woman was weaving on her feet. Her pride, her fear, her distrust kept her from accepting help. As a trained Mask, Mel hadn’t been taught to feel compassion, only to assess two sides of a dispute impartially, giving equal credence to each. She had been taught to resolve conflict with the best possible outcome for both parties involved. But this…
“Please,” she said again. Begged.
Treyna turned her back to Mel and raised her fists, preparing to engage once again in the conflict taking center stage in the basin below them. The trog leader had wrestled the water elemental to the ground. One gray arm held the elemental across the throat. The other arm ended in a fist the size of a house, which was pummeling the elemental’s head with a thunderous, wet concussions. Above them, the wind, now twice as strong thanks to Rav’s added presence, whipped the trog, lashing it’s thick-hided limbs with sand, striping its legs with red gashes.
Behind Treyna, Mel reached out again, careful not to make contact with the woman’s skin. Touch was best, but if Treya wouldn’t accept it, Mel would respect her wishes. So she stopped just short of touching her and pushed into her. Trenya’s shoulders straightened. Her head shot up level on her neck, and she drew a deep, strong breath.
And then Mel was falling. But not downward—instead, she was pulled forward. Like a chunk of metal drawn to a magnetized stone. Her eyes opened wide as she tried to step back. Her arms shook, but she was unable to pull away. Hands still not quite touching Trenya, Mel was connected to her nonetheless.
“You can’t pull away,” Treyna’s words sounded in her head, though she had not spoken out loud. “Not now. I won’t let you.”
Deep inside Mel, in the dark recesses of her chest, near the scarred parts of her that drew breath, a single particle of clay remained. Mel saw it now, glowing, coming to life. Treyna beckoned it. Bonded with it. It was inside Mel. It was Mel. And together, she and Treyna called forth the terrata, the earth elemental.
She opened up her hungry mouth and roared.
Chapter 65
The earth rose up in the form of a mighty mouth, a gaping maw of sand and clay from the depths of the earth.
As the trog wrestled with the aqua elemental on the floor of the basin, it was unaware of the hungry sand opening up at its feet. Another brutal punch rendered the water elemental helpless—it collapsed in a torrential slosh, the weight of which shook Ott off his feet.
Bookman had herded many of the people back to the safety of the tents, but others had refused to leave. The collapse of the water elemental hit them all with a steamy mist that clouded their eyes. Ott shoved the wet hair back from his eyes and blinked. Standing with a tenuous balance, he managed to clear his vision just in time to see the earth swallow the trog lord’s leg.
Screaming loud enough to make Ott clasp his palms to his ears, the trog slid on his back as the earthen mouth began to consume him. Joint by joint, the trog disappeared, each bite eliciting a tortured shriek that Ott was certain would deafen them all.
With a final gulp, the trog vanished, his scream cut off by the earthen mouth snapping shut.
The basin floor smoothed out as if nothing had ever been there.
Chapter 66
Mel found herself shoved out of Treyna’s elemental. The smaller woman whirled around and glared at Mel. “I told you not to touch me.” When Mel drew back in surprise, Treyna stomped toward the camp, skirts swirling, as she called Harro’s name.
Of course Mel had questions. She had a thousand of them, maybe more.
She and Treyna had buried the trog lord in the bowels of the earth from which it would not be able to rise again. But did that mean that the army of trogs had been disbanded? Where were they? Would they keep attacking without their leader? How could a creature that enormous have lain hidden underground its whole life? Mel had never heard of such a creature in all of the Mask journals she’d read.
So many questions without answers.
In the basin, the wind dissipated. The sand that the respirus, or air element
al, had been carrying fell in a soft, dusty rain. The two sisters, Rav and Zunee, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, gazing out at it. The red powder descended until it became part of the desert floor.
The water elemental, which had been sitting up, propped on its hands, legs stretched out in front of it as it recovered its composure, fell back in a full sprawl, collapsing as if it were a skin that burst. Except there was no skin, only water that flowed throughout the basin more than knee-deep. Two heads emerged, and then two drenched, bedraggled figures stood up in the water and began making their way up the hill.
“Ugh,” Marget said, her voice carrying. “I can’t believe I ever liked you. I used to want to kiss you.”
“Disgusting,” Charl agreed, wringing out his sopping shirt. Mel saw the glint of his agamite ring as the morning sun began to crest over the camp.
“And who’s that yellow-haired girl you keep thinking about? I know more about her than her own mother. Including what she sounds like when you’re—” Marget pulled a face, pushing her dripping hair over her shoulder.
“None of your business.”
“I wish it were none of my business. But what’s yours is apparently mine. I’m too polite to shove you right now, but I really want to.” The expression on Marget’s face would have withered the soul of a lesser man. Charl merely grinned, looking self-satisfied and smug.
“Glad to see you two are all right,” Ott told them, lending a hand to pull them each up the sandy hill. Mel tried to stop herself from gawking but could not—she was too exhausted to do anything otherwise.
Jaine came running up the backside of the hill from the camp. With a loud whoop, she picked up Marget and spun her around. “That was incredible. What was it like? Thanks for bringing me with you. What else can you do?”
