Over the noise of the engines, Astrid could hear the collapsing rock behind them. The way they’d set the charges, the spire should have crumbled in on itself, imploding down into a pile of stone and glass and metal. She imagined the sand swallowing the flames and pulverizing the remaining bits. If only she could have seen it with her own eyes. Her heart pumped with exhilaration. She’d never done anything so reckless before.
The ship rose up above the sandstorm and spread its wings, slowing to a glide and pulling back power from the engines. The relative calm was enough for Astrid and the others to collect themselves. Nix brushed a swath of sand off his brown cloak and dabbed gingerly at a cut on his forehead, examining his bloody fingers.
Astrid stood and coughed up sand from her mouth, pulling off a leather glove and shaking it out, using her finger to wipe grains from her gritty tongue. Now that they were out of danger, something occurred to her.
She asked the Dinari, “Nix, who’s driving the ship?”
Nix looked first to Ju-Long, who was still picking himself up off the floor, and then to her. The Dinari still seemed skeptical of her, even though she’d just helped blow up an Ansaran Spire. Old prejudices were the hardest to break.
Nix sighed and relented, “Given everything that’s happened, maybe it is time you know the truth.”
25
The ship rocked to the left, throwing Nix and the others off kilter. At first, Nix thought it was a sudden blast of turbulence, but the dull sound of an explosion outside the ship quickly made him think otherwise. Astrid and Ju-long held onto one another, planting their feet to maintain balance.
“That wasn’t the sandstorm, was it?” Astrid asked rhetorically. “Who’s flying this thing?”
“No one,” Nix said, passing her in a sprint toward the cockpit around the curving corridor along the starboard half of the ship. “No person, anyway.”
The control room was abuzz with flashing red and yellow warning lights. The great bowed window that curved around the front of the cockpit was awash with particles of coarse sand, pugnaciously pelting the glass in a vociferous display. Nix took the pilot’s seat at the front and to the right, a cracked leather seat with a headrest that didn’t match the rest of the chair or the many rustic dials and switches on the console. Nix had made several modifications since their last exploits on the planet Narra and beyond. He slipped his arm through a copper ring, grabbing the handle which was suspended beyond, controlling the ship through the gyrations of his wrist, or perhaps simply his intent, he was never sure which.
Astrid and Ju-Long filed in after Nix had already taken the controls away from the ship. The Ansaran nearly stumbled over the fifth seat which had been added behind the four established workstations. Nix felt the awkwardness in the room and decided to remain silent.
“What’s this?” she asked Nix, curiously feeling the scaled leather of the Arondak Lizard, newly sewn onto the frame of The Garuda’s newest addition.
“Nice,” Ju-Long exclaimed.
“Don’t mention it.”
Astrid approached him and placed a warm hand on his shoulder. Nix looked up out of the corner of his globular eyes at the Ansaran’s beaming blue face. In the relative darkness created by the swirling squall, her blue and green eyes glowed with some sort of repressed fervor. He wished she wouldn’t look at him that way. The pit of his stomach suddenly felt hollow and his mind flashed to his time in the spires. To the time he saw the Heiress, Astrid’s homicidal sister. Those eyes haunted him.
“You didn’t have to.”
The maelstrom outside the long window lit up with Ansaran laser blasts, reflecting brilliantly off the wall of sand. Nix did his best to look ahead, avoiding her glowing gaze. Whether she knew it or not, there was a certain power there he couldn’t explain. It felt different than The Heiress, but no less frightening.
“Really,” Nix said in a serious tone, “Don’t mention it.”
The underside of the ship took a grazing blow from one of the laser blasts, forcing the crew to brace against the sudden shift in trajectory.
“Strap in,” Nix commanded.
Astrid and Ju-Long complied without question, finding the nearest seats and pulling the shoulder straps around them, clicking them together over their chests. Once Nix was satisfied they were secure, he banked hard to the right until they were headed directly into the storm. The cockpit was alive with the sound of the pelting grit, the din assaulting Nix’s ears.
Nix couldn’t pinpoint the source of the blasts, occasional flashes of light still penetrating the sand as though the Ansarans were fumbling for them desperately in darkness. Eventually, Nix thought, one of those beams might find its mark. The copper loop tightened around his arm until it was snug. Nix could feel his connection with the ship growing, the familiar motions of The Garuda occurring milliseconds before his muscles had voiced their intent. It was as though he and the ship were old friends who’d picked up right where they’d left off at some point in the past. Though it had only been months since he’d flown her, the beast was wild and sometimes forgot what it truly was, an amalgamation of soul and steel.
Nix pulled up on the controls and the ship instantly reacted, the rushing sand cascading off the ship’s underbelly. They continued to climb until the sand began to thin out and he could see the yellowed sky once more. The sound of the storm began to die down, leaving Nix with the hum of the engines and the slow procession of purple Aether flowing overhead.
“Almost too easy,” Nix stated with a smirk curling up his right cheek.
“Did we lose them?” Astrid asked.
An explosion rocked the ship and Nix’s console went dead. Nix felt his body yank against his straps and his neck pop with the sudden force. The ship began to lean to the left, the port engine blown by a direct hit. The cockpit was silent but for the flow of the storm outside the curving bay window and the crawl of the Aether overhead, the purple energy wavering. If not for the growing darkness and the feeling of his insides crawling up his throat, it would have been hard for Nix to tell through the wall of sand that they were losing altitude.
“Hold on,” Nix told the others, cutting the power to the console and running through the ignition sequence to reboot the system.
A grumble from deep within the ship startled him. Over the years, The Garuda had made a number of interesting noises. From the random creaks to the phantom drips, the ship had its problems. However, Nix had never heard that sound before. It was guttural, primal even. The energy which flowed overhead sped from a relative crawl to a gushing flood of the bright purple substance.
“What’s happening?” Astrid asked, fingers grasping at her chair’s armrests.
Ju-Long turned to Nix and asked, concerned, “It’s her, isn’t it?”
Astrid was in full panic mode. “Who? Nix, what’s going on? Why won’t the console come back?”
The ship started to descend at a steeper angle, laser blasts continuing to light up the storm around them. At least, Nix thought, it had been a lucky strike. The Ansarans still couldn’t see them through the storm. Not yet, anyway.
Nix’s eyes traveled up the length of the channel of energy. The gushing flow of the plasma-like energy persisted. That was it. She was too far gone. Nix pulled his arm out of the copper rung.
“It’s no use,” Nix told the crew. “The Garuda has us now.”
The groan that emanated up through the grated metal floors turned into a mechanical roar, the cry of an ancient beast that had finally tasted freedom. Every light in the cockpit flashed and went haywire, languages foreign even to Nix scrolling through the many screens. An orange hologram of the planet projected up and out of the console, spinning at an impossible rate.
“Get the controls back!” Ju-Long cried.
He didn’t understand. He could never understand.
“I can’t,” Nix admitted. He hated the feeling of not being in control. It reminded him just how dangerous the Corsairs were. At the very least, they were a double-edged swor
d. They held massive power that was devastating when directed toward an enemy, but in their core they were still wild. Some beasts could never be fully tamed. He continued, “We’re all just passengers.”
“How can that be?” Astrid asked, her expression a mix of disbelief and fear. “This isn’t happening.”
Astrid continued to echo her last statement under her breath, as though somehow saying it out loud would make it true. Nix remembered his first reaction when he found out just what the ship really was. It had taken weeks to fully accept. How does someone accept that the stories they heard as a child were all true? The only way Nix knew was time.
Nix told Astrid, “It can, and it is. All we can do now is trust her instincts.”
Nix felt the port engine fire and the added thrust pushed him back against his seat. Maybe it was the wiring, or the very nature of the steel, but the beast felt pain. It felt a great many things. Over the years Nix had seen his fair share of her capabilities. Right then, he knew without a doubt. The Garuda was furious.
“How can you be so cavalier about it?” Astrid asked. “Has this happened before?”
Nix watched the controls move on their own as the ship banked to the left and opened fire into the sand, lighting it up with thousands of blue pellets. In the distance an explosion shined through the dust. It had finished the first of its prey in mere seconds.
“Not exactly,” Nix said. “But, when you fly around in the belly of a ship inhabited by the soul of a beast of legend, your notion of what is and isn’t possible kind of goes out the window.”
Realization finally came over Astrid’s face. “Wait, you mean to tell me this piece of crap is a Corsair?”
The ship let out a growling noise and the control handle turned hard, forcing the ship into a continuous barrel-roll.
“She didn’t know!” Nix yelled over the noises of the ship.
The Garuda came out of the roll at a steep starboard angle, forcing itself through the wall of sand and opening fire once more into the wall of obscurity.
Nix turned and looked over his shoulder, berating Astrid, “Please, don’t call her ‘it,’ she doesn’t like that.”
Astrid scoffed, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
A second explosion lit up the storm with a flurry of orange flames. The Garuda had found its second victim. Nix stroked the console with his scaly hands, moving gently over the surface in a rhythmic fashion. Though there’d never be any way to really know for sure, Nix liked to think she enjoyed it.
Ju-Long peered at Astrid over his shoulder and commented, “A living ship, souls of legendary beasts; give it a while, you’ll get used to the idea.”
26
Elder Bartle used his cane to support his frail body as he made his way up the last few steps. The Sand’s Edge was never a place for elders, but duty called no matter the circumstance. He had been called a healer, a medicine man, a witch doctor and a charlatan in his lengthy span of years, but most Dinari still revered him for the part he played in the demise of the Phage. A part so small Elder Bartle had forgotten the details in his old age. Perhaps, more likely, he did not want to remember. No one should be forced to remember such things.
He turned the door handle and entered Liam’s room. Sand whipped by the window on the other side of the wall of plastic. Though the storm was not traveling in the direction of Liam’s window, sand still poured through the gap, sprinkling down to the floor. The man in the Death Shroud had a thin layer of the course grains lodged in every nook. He reminded the elder of the countless bodies that had been forgotten, covered by sand, never to be seen again. Those were dark times.
Elder Bartle calmly pushed his way through the slit in the plastic and used a roughly hewn blanket to block off most of the window. He leaned his cane against the clay wall and, with great effort, knelt beside the still man. Elder Bartle used his clawed hand to wipe some of the sand off his garments and the crevices of his strange ears. A set of brilliant blue eyes turned to him, visibly frightened behind the horrid shroud.
“I can’t move,” Liam said. “My muscles—”
“A side effect. It will pass.”
Elder Bartle moved into a sitting position and leaned back against the wall. He could feel grains of sand still sprinkling down from the window above, grazing his neck and plinking off his rough skin. There was something comforting about the desert that Elder Bartle couldn’t put his claw on. He hadn’t left Garuda Colony since the remnants of the Dinari Resistance were routed. He was in a unique position. The Ansarans let him live to prevent a renewed conflict, but their eyes had never left him even countless decades later. The elder was a prisoner, but his chains were invisible. He supposed they were all prisoners there.
“This might pinch a bit.”
The elder reached into his cloak and retrieved a glass syringe, filled with a green liquid of an unnatural shade. He jabbed the needle into Liam’s shoulder and depressed the plunger, filling him with every drop. Liam protested, but didn’t move. When the liquid was gone he pulled out the needle and placed the syringe off to the side. No matter what happened now, he’d done all he could.
“This is the final phase.”
He began to wipe Liam’s forehead with the dry cloth that lay by his side, brushing away the grit. Paralysis was not usually a good sign. It meant his body was rejecting the medicine. One way or another, by morning it would be over. The elder only hoped he wouldn’t see the other symptoms. It was impossible to tell how the Phage would transfigure itself in a human. The human’s eyes had not begun to bleed, nor was his skin covered in grotesque lesions. Strange.
Elder Bartle put down the cloth and leaned his head against the clay wall, looking up toward the ceiling.
“Do you know the story of the Corsairs?”
Liam shifted his eyes away hurriedly. The elder smiled to himself. Even outsiders now knew the tales. He supposed that was a good thing. The more people who knew the stories the better. No amount of brainwashing and reeducation would diminish the truth for those willing to listen.
“I’ve heard things,” Liam finally relented.
“I used to think about the story in all its various forms when I was younger. At its core it’s a story about hope, even when hoping seems futile.”
Liam remained silent, breathing in slow and shallow breaths and exhaling through his nose. Elder Bartle liked to think the Corsairs would never really be gone, so long as they lived on in the stories of his people. It was a fanciful notion. Sometimes hope really was lost. Still, the elder knew the power of hope in the process of healing. Even if he didn’t believe it, Elder Bartle had put on a brave face for countless patients.
He continued, “There is a version I like. It is a dirge, a sad song. Still, if you truly listen to the words, hope remains.”
Elder Bartle cleared his throat. The storm continued to rage in the background as he began to sing in a voice deeper than his normal register.
One thousand years
All must bear burdens
Taken from their beds
All bear their burdens
The Corsairs ride
The Beasts will fly
Aether sings tonight
The Aether sings
Four dozen fell
Two lost by time itself
Two lost by time
The Beasts of myth cry tears of souls
Lost by the dark in-between
Corsairs live to kill their foes
Dinari rising free
This war won’t end
This message send
One thousand years
One thousand more
One thousand more…
Elder Bartle’s globe-like eyes welled up with tears. The Ansarans had forbidden the song from being sung or written down. Only a few still remembered it.
“Elder, what really happened to the Corsairs?” Liam asked.
That was a complicated question and not one easily answered. Elder Bartle supposed it would depend on who
was doing the asking. Could he trust this foreigner? Nix seemed to think so.
“I expect no one knows for sure. There are many who wish to cover up the fact that there ever was a war. But, the scars left by the War of a Thousand Years are not so easily scrubbed away. You of all people must know that.”
“What do you mean?” Liam asked, eyes returning to the elder.
Elder Bartle smiled.
“I am nobody’s fool, boy. Whether you’re in Zega’s hand or working with that new Caretaker, Toras, it matters not. You’ve seen the tension, haven’t you? War is coming, the people say. Nay, the Long War never ended. Not really. Wise men know this.”
Elder Bartle reached for the thin blade attached to his hip. He was in no hurry as he leaned in and pressed the cold metal against Liam’s exposed throat. His heart raced. Memories of the Long War came rushing back to him. A large part of him yearned for those days. It was easier back then. Kill the Ansarans. Kill the Kraven. Save the Dinari.
But what of Humans?
“What are you doing?” Liam stammered, unable to move his lifeless limbs.
“Liam Kidd,” Elder Bartle began, his voice serene, “Zega says you’ve served him well, even killed a Kraven Lord in your short time here. There are rumors, though. Dark words that few speak ill of the band of Outsiders in our midst. Tell me, whose side are you really on?”
“No one’s side. We just want to go home.”
“Dangerous is the man who would cast aside three species for the sake of three humans. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Zega planned the relationship with Toras, Vidu too.”
“So, Zega is your master.”
“No! Zega is filth, a means to an end.”
Interesting, Elder Bartle thought. Maybe there was more to this outsider than he thought.
The Corsair Uprising Collection, Books 1-3 Page 44
