The Forgotten City

by Nina D'Aleo

  Diega felt a disturbance in the air and heard Shawe groan – the Omarian had him locked in light-form.

  “Freefall!” she screamed at their drone and he obeyed, dropping like a rock from the sky. It broke the connection and Shawe gasped as he regained his control, but the Omarian was still on them. He zoomed in above them, concentrating his attack on their drone instead, who buzzed hysterically, weaving and bucking, dodging fire and light-form and almost dropping them. Diega knew he wouldn’t last long against the Omarian and squinting through watering eyes, cast wildly around for something to help them. She spotted K-Ruz riding on the other drone some distance ahead.

  “Caesar!” she yelled to him, her voice immediately snatched by the wind. She thought there was no chance he would hear, but his acute feline senses picked up on the call and he whipped around. He spotted them and spoke to his drone, urging it back. It did a quick turn and flew back their way, on a collision course with the Omarian. The warrior saw them coming and paused his attack on Shawe’s drone. Diega watched upward as the two Neridori zoomed closer and closer. The Omarian raised one hand, preparing to incinerate Caesar, but the Pride King raised his hand as well and Diega heard the shing of his claws coming out. A second more passed – the two creatures were almost on each other. The Omarian threw a fireblast at Caesar, who ducked it and slashed out with his claws, severing the Omarian’s head. The body rolled off the Neridori guard and plummeted down to the forest floor. The guard made a sudden dodge out of the drone’s path, narrowly avoiding a collision. Without sparing them a further glance, it spun in the air and sped back toward the hive.

  Sesame flew in underneath Diega and she dropped onto his back. She groaned from the pain in her arms and wrists from hanging for so long and her senses blipped, specks of light dancing across her sight, but she managed to blink them away.

  “We have to find the gateway into Murkmire!” she yelled to Sesame.

  “I don’t know where the gateways are,” he buzzed. “I’ve never been out of the hive.”

  “Then take us to the others who escaped. We need to find someone who does know.”

  The drones flew them onward for some distance before Sesame dropped to the ground, where the rest of the drones and other freed prisoners had gathered. Diega jumped off his back and landed with Shawe and Caesar beside her. The wound in Shawe’s arm was already blistering up and cracking open, but he barely seemed to notice it. He moved fast toward Copernicus, clutched in the arms of another terrified-looking drone.

  “He’s not well. He’s not well at all,” the drone stammered as Shawe and Caesar took hold of Copernicus again. He was struggling to keep his head up, still fighting the poison, but Diega could see he was slipping fast.

  “Does anyone here know how to get to Murkmire?” she called out to the gathering, her voice hoarse and frantic.

  “To the swamplands?” someone called back. “Inchmeal knows the way – the way Inchmeal knows.” An enormous grasshopper sprung out of the crowd, staring at them with intense, dark brown eyes, antennae pointing forward.

  “You know how to get there?” Diega repeated.

  The creature gave a chirping response, “Indeed, indeed, indeed, indeed, follow Inchmeal to the gateway – to the gateway follow Inchmeal.”

  He turned and disappeared with a giant bound.

  The group crashed through the forest after him, each of them sensing the fire presence of the Omarians closing in behind. Caesar snarled softly, tasting the air and disliking the smoke.

  The insect-breed led them into a clearing where swans were gliding over a golden-water pond beneath a gigantic head carved in rock. The eyes of the sculpture were glistening, giant pearls. Water flowed from its open mouth into the pond.

  “The head of Solomon,” Diega murmured.

  “Swim through the mouth to Murkmire … To Murkmire swim through the mouth,” Inchmeal told them.

  Diega splashed into the pond, with Shawe and Caesar dragging Copernicus just behind her. The trees around the pond had started to sway and groan, and the wind rose, biting at their skin, wailing as though the whole forest were crying. Smoke stifled the air. Diega reached the head first and grabbed the rock mouth. She hauled herself up onto its lip.

  The head began to shake.

  “Quick!” she called to the others and helped them haul Copernicus in.

  She heard a shout and looked up to see the Omarians appear at the water’s edge. She felt their light-form grip her, the strength draining from her body.

  A swarm of drones led by Sesame bombed down on the Omarians, the distraction allowing Caesar and Shawe to climb into the mouth. In a sudden movement, the head tilted back, sending Diega and the others crashing down over smooth, algae-covered rocks into blackness.

  Chapter 29

  Croy

  Kullra Fornax

  Nÿr-Corum (The Crematorium)

  Croy fought a savage upblast of windstorm to bring her dragger down on the landing pad of the Crematorium. Instead of leaving it parked outside, as she and Darius had done earlier, she dismounted and wheeled it toward the entrance door of the main building. She couldn’t risk a cyclonic wind sweeping away her only method of escape. Despite the hum of the I-Sect’s signal-pending in her ear, she felt profoundly alone. She could barely move around the fear, dragged forward only by the insistent buzzing sensation in her head, which had grown stronger the closer she’d flown to the Crematorium. Now that she had arrived, the sensation had changed again, the buzzing lessening, becoming more a feeling like someone had hold of her wrists and was hauling her in. Her instincts told her to run, yet the touch felt so familiar, and there was such a sense of great urgency behind it. Every time she hesitated the grip tightened, so she limped on, leaning heavily on her dragger, bracing against the freezing winds. As she neared the gate Croy drew her Firestorm and prepared for a Mortician to step into her path, but she reached the entrance without interception.

  Keeping the dragger in front of her as a shield, she pushed the door open and wheeled the vehicle inside the building. She paused, holding her breath, listening, waiting, staring down the length of the long, hollow corridor. Nothing. She kicked out the parking stand and primed her weapon, then started down toward the records room. Thick chemical clouds of the itchem-poly-magmylate saturated the air, but she could still smell an undercurrent of decay, like a puff of Klinsman’s breath on every gust of wind. The flame torches flickered wildly.

  A door banged shut behind her and Croy whipped around, aiming her Firestorm at an empty corridor. A heavy silence filled every space.

  She turned back and kept moving, gritting her teeth, struggling to keep her breathing slow and hands steady, as she retraced their steps from a dayturn earlier. She found the records room empty and passed through it, heading for the cool rooms. There were no signs of Morticians anywhere until she neared the storage room that opened directly to the coolers, then she heard the grinding shriek of metal striking metal.

  Croy kept low and ran to the closed door of the storage room. She slammed her back into the wall beside it, first clearing behind her, then inching the door open to peer inside. The first thing she saw was red. Red on the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor, then all the gore of cut-up Morticians strewn everywhere. Masses more of the hairless, white-cloaked death mongers stood surrounding a person, a man, trapped in the center of the chaos. He was swinging an axe, fighting them back. He sidestepped a stabbing knife, grabbing the attacker by the arm and flinging him aside. Through the throng of bodies, Croy caught sight of the man’s face. His features and body structure seemed human, but his skin was different, darker and marked with a pattern across his arms, and the shine of his clothes was unlike any fabric she’d seen. It blended with the shadows. A cage-like device had been attached around the stranger’s head and face. He swung the axe with brutal force and split a Mortician clean in half. As he swung again, another Mortician stabbed a scalpel into his side repeatedly. Each time Croy felt the pain as though she were the one being
stabbed.

  More of the death mongers grabbed the man around the chest, legs and waist, trying to drag him down to the ground. His muscles strained, clearly powerful, but the sheer number of Morticians was overwhelming him. Croy felt a sense of being suffocated and crushed, and panic shot through her. The man’s dark eyes raised to door and he looked straight at her. She felt a buzzing in her head, and heard words that echoed through her mind … to me … to me …

  Strength rushed through her. She charged into the room. One Mortician whipped around and threw a knife at her head. She dived sideways out of the way as it struck exactly where she’d stood. More were turning to her, all their eyes strange, staring but unseeing. Some of them started to move toward her. Croy raised her Firestorm and shot without hesitation – blasting through them row after row until the only two people left standing were herself and the stranger. Fire and gun smoke saturated the air. Croy kept her aim on the man, her eyes locked with his. Breathing heavily and bleeding profusely, red blood like a human, he lowered the heavy axe to the ground with a clunk. Croy felt more pulses of buzzing and pain seared through her leg, sharp enough to make her cry out and stumble. Shadows flickered over the ceiling.

  Clattering came from the cold room behind the stranger. Croy’s first thought was of victims and survivors trapped inside there. Still keeping the man in the Firestorm’s sights she backed to the cold room door and shot a glance through the transparent panel. It was a moment before she registered what she was seeing – all the bodies, the corpses, were twitching, rising, standing and starting to stagger to the door where she stood.

  Impossible, but it was happening before her eyes.

  Croy looked back at the stranger. All around him dead Morticians were starting to stir. Soon they’d be swallowed by a mass of reanimated dead, and her Firestorm was all but out of flint. Sparks from one of the burning bodies ignited a puddle of itchem on the ground from a punctured barrel. The fire spread fast to the rest of the barrels – enough to make the whole place explode. They had to get out – now.

  “Move – toward the door!” Croy instructed the stranger, gesturing with her weapon. He tried to comply, but could only shuffle, his ankles chained together. Blood gushed from the wound in his side, fast saturating his clothes. He looked up at her, and she felt what could only be described as love – like seeing someone she’d been missing for a very long time standing in front of her. It completely overtook her, and even as she realized with distant horror that this man wasn’t human, she found herself running to him as burning corpses rose all around them and the door to the cold room started to dent inward. The man was trying to swing the axe down on the chains around his legs, but couldn’t get the angle right. Croy holstered her Firestorm and grabbed the axe from him, freeing him with one hit. She grabbed him around the waist and he leaned against her as they broke for the door. One of the dead Morticians grabbed Croy around the ankle but she kicked free and they fled, running to keep ahead of the shambling dead and the roar of fire gathering strength behind them. The place was about to go up like one big cremation oven.

  Finally they reached the last corridor and Croy saw her dragger up ahead. They ran for it, almost there, when the Mortician leader, Baraway Westor, flew out of the shadows and smashed the stranger onto the ground. He tried to stab a scalpel through the man’s head. Croy drew her Firestorm and blasted him off but even though he was burning and hanging in bits, he still staggered up and tried to rush them again. Croy lunged onto her dragger and the stranger swung on behind her. She grabbed her knife and threw it, taking out Westor’s legs, then kicked the dragger to life. They crashed through the door, zooming across the landing pad, into the open air.

  Croy looked back to see the dead spewing out the front gates, staggering over the strip and tumbling over the edges, falling soundlessly into black nothing below. It was the most hideous and disturbing thing she’d ever seen. She sped up, and they had already reached the lower edge of Saint Smithy Borough by the time she felt the tremor of the Crematorium exploding.

  Croy flew toward her house with the Dray’s arms wrapped around her waist and his hot breath on her neck – this beautiful monster.

  Chapter 30

  Eli

  Aquais

  Scorpia (Adliden)

  The slow swishes of the boatman’s oar arms lulled Eli into a half-sleep haze where he drifted for an unknown time, finally to wake with a jolt, tasting the tang of dried salt water on his lips. His sudden movement disturbed Ismail, who was sprawled out beside him. The scullion’s eyes blinked open and he pushed himself up, a growl rattling in his throat before his military composure overcame his wild side. They both stared into the wide, flat face of the marine-breed who had come to their rescue, and now rowed them through calmer river waters. The boatman had a puckered mouth, and skin that matched the blue-brown of the water with yellow flecks the same color as his eyes, sharp and shrewd. He was watching them intently.

  Ismail squinted and Eli felt the telepathic itch of the scullion trying to break into the boatman’s mind, but his head suddenly tilted sideways as though he’d been physically rebuffed. Eli’s first thought was that a mind would have to be enormously powerful to keep Ismail’s skills out.

  “Identify yourself,” Ismail demanded.

  “I’m Imrad the Twibowl, aren’t I,” the boatman replied, blinking transparent eyelids in and out. He gave a shrill whistle, then added, “And you?”

  Ismail just stared him down.

  Eli said, “Eli Anklebiter and Ismail Ohavor.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the boatman. According to the current research literature, Twibowls had become extinct year-cycles ago after a natural disaster poisoned their home waters. Eli had seen the horrendous images of the dead and hadn’t been able to get them out of his head ever since, but clearly the research was wrong. This was truly one of the most amazing beings Eli had seen, ancient, brilliant and perhaps the last of his kind.

  “Many thanks for rescuing us,” Eli said.

  “Rescue?” Imrad chuckled. “Rescue, indeed. You whistled me in, didn’t you, so mayhaps you saved yourself, mayhaps true?” He smiled.

  “Mayhaps – I mean maybe,” Eli said. He realized the Twibowl must have heard Ismail whistling to the seahorses. His mind returned to the destroyed portal. It left them only one other option – LaNoria. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. Their realistic chances of getting into the sealed-off level, finding the portal and then getting out were zero – but they couldn’t just abandon the others. That wasn’t an option.

  Eli looked up at the Twibowl, who was watching him closely with interest, while Ismail watched the Twibowl closely with suspicion.

  “I wonder … well, we’re looking for —” Eli started.

  “Don’t tell him anything!” Ismail cut in.

  “It’s okay. You can speak,” Imrad said, with a long, slow swish of his paddle arms.

  “Can we?” Ismail responded coldly. “How generous of you.”

  “We have to ask. What else can we do? The portal is destroyed.” Eli said.

  “Portal?” Imrad repeated.

  Eli rushed in before Ismail could stop him, “We’re trying to get to another realm, to rescue our friends, and there’s a portal in LaNoria. It’s the last in the city. It’s just getting there and getting out that’s going to be the issue.”

  “Well to LaNoria I can help you with,” Imrad said. “I can take you to an entrance, but out … that I don’t know.”

  “Why would you be so eager to help us?” Ismail said.

  “Just so.” The Twibowl smiled. “Just will.”

  “No one helps anyone without wanting something in return – what do you want?” Ismail demanded, echoing his previous sentiments.

  “I want to sing.” Imrad pursed his lips and started singing, with the most beautiful, haunting voice, the saddest song about a soldier trying to find his way home. It brought tears to Eli’s eyes and as he wiped them away, he noticed Ismail glaring at him.


  “Why did you swim back for me?” the scullion asked with a lowered voice, while Imrad kept singing and whistling. “You should have kept going. You jeopardized the entire mission!” He clutched at his chest, cursing.

  Eli heard a muffled beep beneath Ismail’s shirt and said, “Your vials are getting low. Here —” He took the refills, which he had tried to give Ismail earlier, out of his belt.

  The scullion hesitated, but then took the vials. He opened his shirt and checked over the He-Ro until he found the vial chamber.

  “I swam back for you because soldiers never leave soldiers behind,” Eli told him as Ismail removed the emptying vials and replaced them.

  “Illogical romanticism gets you nowhere except dead, soldier,” Ismail responded. “Your heart is bigger than your brain. Besides it’s not the truth anyway, your mind just told me so – and I want to know the real reason.”

  Eli considered his words – he was right – military honor had nothing to do with him not leaving Ismail behind.

  “I’m not going to abandon you because Ev’r loves you,” he said.