Girl from the Stars 4- Day's Journey

by Cheree Alsop

  “Ready your weapons!” Tariq called out.

  Liora tightened her grip on her knives as the creature leaped forward.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw hundreds of others do the same. A tide of dark, toothed, clawed fiends attacked from the sides of the cave.

  Three hit Liora with the force of the Gauls crashing into the doors. She slammed into the stalagmite closest to her, keeping the teeth and claws at bay with her blades the best that she could. She stabbed at an eye and the jolt of hitting a substance harder than diamond sent a shock up her arm. She used her other hand to block claws swiping for her stomach and attempted to drive her knife into the first creature’s neck, but again her blade was repelled by its armored skin. She bit back a gasp as claws sunk through her Ventican clothing into her arms and legs.

  “Aim for the stomach,” someone yelled.

  Liora realized the strained voice was Tariq’s. She spotted him deeper in the cavern. His gun lay on the ground, its light shining on more of the creatures spilling from the stalagmites. They surrounded him in a circle, their claws clicking on the hard floor and mouths opening for attack. Tariq grabbed one of the creatures by the throat and shoved his blade into its stomach. The fleshy substance gave, bright green blood spilled out, and the creature stopped fighting. He threw it into the others.

  Liora sheathed a knife and grabbed one of her attackers the way Tariq had. She drove her other knife into its stomach. The flesh gave way and her hand sunk into the wound. The fiend stopped fighting immediately and slumped in her hand. She threw it to the side and grabbed the creature attempting to chew through her leg. She ended its life with a quick stab, withdrew her other blade, and dropped to her knees to drive her knives into two more stomachs.

  There was a pile of bodies around her by the time the creatures stopped attacking. The sounds of heavy breathing as the warrior army fought to catch their breaths and regroup was the only thing audible in the cavern.

  “That was exciting,” Tariq said.

  There was a light in his eyes that matched those of the warriors around Liora. Though his arms were streaked with red and a tear across his cheek dripped blood down his skin, there was enjoyment on his face as though slaying the creatures had been more fun than work.

  The expression terrified Liora. Though Tariq was the best shot she had ever seen, and had never held back when killing was necessary, he had never relished it. He was a healer first, the Chief Medical Officer of the S.S. Kratos. He valued life far above Liora, and had taught her to see past her upbringing. She killed for necessity and was good at it, but couldn’t smile in the face of death.

  “Let’s see what’s next.” The anticipation in Tariq’s words when he brushed past Liora clutched at her with dread. Whatever the Cherum had done, they had taken something from him and she didn’t know if he could get it back.

  Tariq’s gun light lit a corridor that branched off of the cavern.

  “Should we go down or continue along our path?” he asked.

  Liora didn’t like the idea of going deeper into the dome, but the thought that Brandis was there somewhere made the decision for her.

  “Let’s go down.”

  She glanced at Tariq as they walked and saw his expression change in the shadows. The anticipation faded and a darker look touched his eyes.

  She gestured to the wounds along his arms. “Do you need bandages?”

  Tariq looked down as if he had just noticed the blood. He shook his head. “They don’t hurt.” He glanced at the warriors behind him, surmising their wounds for the first time. “Should we stop and tend to their injuries?”

  There was a question in his voice and a hint of confusion. He was the one who had always insisted on taking care of those around him. The fact that he wasn’t sure about the right course of action bothered him and showed in his expression.

  “Our injuries don’t hurt,” Korgutan replied.

  Answering nods showed behind him. Their weapons were bloody and expectancy filled their faces. Following Liora had given them what they wanted, battle. They had left more than a few of their warrior brethren on the floor of the cavern next to the bodies of the hinge-jawed creatures. The army would fight until they couldn’t move anymore. She wondered how much longer she could appease them.

  Tariq nodded as if the answer pleased him. “Let’s keep moving.”

  Sounds echoed up from the next corridor before they reached the end of the path. Scratching, sucking sounds set Liora’s teeth on edge. A strange glowing light showed beyond Tariq’s gun. Liora held up a hand and the warriors behind her slowed. She checked her blades and was relieved to find their edges hadn’t been dulled by the encounter with the armor-skinned creatures from the cavern. Liora took a steeling breath and stepped into the glowing cave.

  The sucking sounds stopped immediately. Liora’s gaze traveled from one pulsing blue mound to the next. A strange, mossy substance covered the ground. It felt spongy beneath her feet, a sharp contrast to the red rock floor of the sloped hallway they had left.

  “What are those?” Korgutan asked quietly from her right side.

  The moss moved. A hand slipped through and drooped toward the ground. Liora’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Brandis?” she called.

  She ran across the moss to the mound. The substance was tough. It took her a few heart-wrenching seconds to cut the mass back far enough to clear the head and shoulders of the person beneath. Tariq dropped to his knees beside her and helped.

  The moss was rough on the outside, but beneath, long strands wrapped around the body, attaching anywhere the skin was exposed. Streaks of greenish-blue ran up the pale skin toward the heart. His chest rose shallowly.

  “It’s not Brandis,” Tariq told Liora when he was able to clear the head from the moss.

  “Get him out,” Liora told the warriors.

  She and Tariq rushed to the next one. A few seconds later, they cleared the moss from a Belanite woman who had been drained completely. Her sunken orange-scaled cheeks and skeletal figure showed in Liora’s mind when she closed her eyes.

  Fear for Brandis made her move from one mound to the next in the huge cavern. She cut through to faces and moved on, barely taking the time to check if they were alive and call the warriors over before hurrying to the next. There were hundreds of mounds and most contained races Liora had never seen before. She found more dead than alive.

  Liora was beginning to think she wouldn’t find Brandis at all when she cut through the moss of the second-to-last mound.

  “Brandis,” she breathed.

  His face was pale and eyes barely fluttered at the sound of her voice. The streaks of greenish-blue had just started along his skin as though he hadn’t been there long.

  “Tariq!” she called over her shoulder.

  He was there before she finished saying his name. Tariq worked quickly, clearing the strands away with quick swipes of his blade. By the time the rest of the moss had been cut away, Brandis’ color had returned somewhat. He mumbled and turned his head from side to side. Liora put her hand to his cheek.

  “Brandis, it’s alright,” she told him. She quickly removed more of the strands connected to his skin. As she did so, she pushed energy at him, willing him to respond.

  His eyes opened, shut, and opened again. The dark brown gaze, so similar to hers, focused on her face. His eyebrows pulled together.

  “Liora?”

  “I’m here,” she replied, smiling with relief. “We’re going to get you out of this place.”

  His gaze shifted to the mound Tariq had moved to.

  “M-Malie,” he said.

  “I’ve got her,” Tariq replied.

  Liora watched him carefully cut through the moss. The delicate features of a small young woman were revealed. Her skin had a faint greenish tint and there were light blue scales around her eyes and cheeks. When Tariq cleared the clinging strands away, she took a shuddering breath and her head tipped toward Brandis.

  He sat u
p, showing more strength than Liora thought he had. She helped him move to the woman’s side. He touched her cheek gently with the back of his hand.

  “Malie, I told you my sister would come for us.”

  Her eyes fluttered open. The huge light blue irises took a moment to focus. When they did, the sight of Brandis above her calmed her rapid breathing.

  “Brandis.” She said his name with a strange lilt to her voice.

  Liora guessed her native language was Tanli by the sound of her vowels. The fingers Malie put on her cheek to cover Brandis’ had webbing between them of the kind Liora had seen from inhabitants of water dominant planets.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” Brandis said.

  He slipped his hands beneath her back and legs and tried to stand up, but his strength gave out. Liora and Tariq caught them both. Liora took the young woman into her own arms. It surprised her how light Malie was.

  “I’ve got her, Brandis. Conserve your strength. I have a feeling we’re not done here,” Liora told her brother.

  Brandis leaned against Tariq for support. When Liora glanced at him, she saw that his attention was on the far end of the cavern. Liora turned just as the first scream tore through the air.

  Chapter 12

  Huge beasts with long hanging claws and black hides barreled through the entrance. Their claws tore into warriors right and left, ripping torsos in half. Those who carried the men and women they had freed from the mossy mounds tried to escape, but the beasts cut them down with roars of rage.

  Liora set Malie gently on the ground and Brandis crouched protectively over her.

  Liora slipped out of her backpack and set it against the cavern wall near them. “I’ll be back,” she promised.

  She withdrew one of the knives from her waist and handed it to her brother. He stared at the weapon with incomprehension in his eyes; the daze of being freed from the moss still showed on his face. Liora could barely bring herself to leave him.

  “They’ve killed half the army already and bullets don’t seem to do any damage,” Tariq said, his voice tight. His gun was in his hand. Liora couldn’t remember hearing him fire shots, but he shoved the gun back in his holster and pulled out two knives.

  “Let’s go,” Liora told him.

  They ran into the fray. The beasts towered above the warriors. Blood coated the mossy floor and the moss glowed blue where the dark liquid coated. Liora had to crane her neck to look up into the monstrous faces. Bared teeth met her gaze along with bellows loud enough to shatter her eardrums.

  Liora used her knives to block the arm-length claws. The first swipe she made at a beast’s stomach jarred her arm the way it had with the smaller cave creatures. She parried a beast’s attempt to bite her head off and ducked beneath its legs. She blocked a swipe for her chest and followed with a jab to the beast’s heart that didn’t do any damage.

  Another beast came up behind her. Around the cavern, yells and cries of pain echoed. Liora doubled her efforts. No matter how she stabbed at the beasts, her knives wouldn’t penetrate. A third approached and true fear blossomed in Liora’s chest. Her arms ached from blocking the relentless blows with her knives that didn’t appear to do any damage to the beasts’ thick hides. Even the lucky stab she had made when a beast bent down to bite her couldn’t penetrate the eye in the middle of its head.

  Liora turned to parry claws aimed for her torso. A cry escaped her lips when another beast’s claws tore along her back, ripping easily through the Ventican clothing. She spun around to knock its claws away and another beast clawed her back from her shoulder to the base of her spine.

  “Liora!” Tariq yelled.

  He dove through the beasts and came up in front of her. He had lost his knives somewhere and stood with empty hands to shield her from them. Two beasts attacked at the same time. Liora let out a shout, sure she was about to see him torn apart in front of her eyes.

  The moment Tariq’s hand touched the first beast’s forearm in his attempt to thwart the slice for his stomach, the beast let out a cry of pain. It stumbled backwards on its huge clawed feet and fell to the floor of the cave clutching its arm. The limb shriveled and turned to ash. The withering continued up its shoulder and along its massive chest.

  Another beast stabbed Tariq through the shoulder. Liora darted around him, sheathing her knives as she did so, and set her hands on the beast’s chest. It gave a bellow and yanked its claws free. It stumbled to the ground as its chest cavity sunk inward.

  The third beast trapped Tariq against the wall. He met its gaze, his own filled with defiance. He let out a yell. The beast replied with a bellow that made Liora’s ears ring. She darted beneath its arm and turned in front of Tariq.

  “Liora!” he protested.

  She knocked the claws to one side with the back of her arm and shoved her hands in the beast’s face. She felt the skin writhe beneath her fingers. The beast clawed at its eyes, gouging huge rents in its skin as it fell to the ground.

  Tariq and Liora stared at the writhing creatures. The first had turned into a shuddering pile of ash. The scent of sulfur filled the air.

  “Touch them with your bare hands!” Liora yelled. “Weapons don’t work on these beasts!”

  Expressions of doubt crossed the faces of the warriors, but they obeyed. All around Liora, the beasts fell with yowls of pain and turned into shuddering heaps of ash. Liora’s arms shook with the strain of fighting back the blows. She could feel the blood dripping down her back from the rents in her skin. The wounds were bad, she knew without looking at them, but she didn’t have time for them yet.

  “Are you alright?”

  The concern in Tariq’s voice brought the hint of a smile to her face. No matter what happened to him, or how desensitized he was to his own pain, he still cared enough to ask her how she was doing.

  She nodded. “We found Brandis.”

  You’re not done yet.

  A chill ran down Liora’s spine.

  “What is it?” Tariq asked, watching her closely.

  “Someone else is here,” Liora replied. “Whoever did this to Brandis.”

  “We knew it was a trap,” Tariq told her. “If we get out now, we may survive in one piece.”

  But there was a darkness to the voice that clouded Liora’s thoughts. It was the speaker, the same one who had set the trap.

  You can’t escape me.

  Liora gritted her teeth. The feeling of the being’s thoughts was like fingernails scraping inside of her brain. She felt nauseous and dirty just hearing the voice.

  What do you want from me? she asked.

  Come and find out, the voice replied.

  Liora took a steeling breath.

  “I’m not letting you go alone,” Tariq said.

  Liora gave him a surprised look. “You heard the voice, too?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I know that expression. You’re about to do something foolhardy and try to get yourself killed to save everyone else.” He grabbed the backpack from near the wall and slipped it on. There was a huge hole in his leg where one of the creatures had sliced through to the bone. Blood dripped from his hastily-made bandage to the moss below.

  “And you want to join me?” she asked in an attempt to lighten his expression.

  “I want to stop you,” he replied. “But I know better than to attempt it. My best bet is to follow and try to keep you from throwing yourself in front of someone else’s bullet.”

  She looked past him to the warriors. They had lost so many in the battle against the cave beasts. Those who remained standing assisted either their army brethren and sisters or carried the survivors they had rescued from the moss.

  “What are your orders?” Korgutan asked. Blood streaked the side of his face from a wound hidden in his orange hair. An Artidus man with two of his arms sliced to ribbons leaned against the warrior.

  If what Liora felt from the voice was true, it wanted pain and fear for any within its reach. She needed to get her brother and her army as f
ar away from the being who spoke in her head as possible.

  “Go back to the ship. Get medical care for our men and women and do what you can to get it ready to fly again. I’m hoping Pilot Zanden was able to stop the Ketulans. If not, you’ll have a battle on your hands.”

  “Aim for the power cells, right Warden?” Korgutan asked. He gave her a salute with the bloody hand he wasn’t using to support the Artidus.

  “Exactly,” Liora replied with an answering salute. She realized her hand was just as bloody. She wiped it on her pant leg but the blood refused to clean away. It took her a minute to understand that it was because her pant leg was coated in blood as well. She wasn’t sure if it was hers or from the creatures.

  “I’m not leaving here without you,” Brandis said. He shrugged away from the assistance of a warrior who helped him stand. Malie leaned against him as though she was about to fall over again. Liora didn’t know what kept the frail woman on her feet. A glimmer of respect surfaced at the way she refused to go down.

  Liora used it to her benefit.

  “She needs you,” she told Brandis. “They all need you. Take charge of what is left of my army and get the rest of the survivors to the ship. I have something I need to finish.”

  Brandis shook his head. “You can’t confront him. You’re not strong enough.” He looked as though he wanted to say something else, then swallowed and shook his head. “No one is strong enough.”

  “A beast who would do this to others doesn’t deserve to survive,” Liora told her brother.

  Brandis met her gaze, his own filled with worry bordering on panic as though the fog of the moss was clearing and he realized what she was about to do. “Liora, you can’t! You’ve got to get out of here. We need to leave before he finds you. We need to go home. You need to go home.”