Obsidian Tears

by Jaleta Clegg

  I wasn't worried about giving myself away. The light was infrared and I had goggles to see with. Lowell had sent me as prepared as he could. I wore a tough jumpsuit and boots better suited to scrambling across a planet than the shiny parade boots issued with my uniform. I had a heated jacket. And pockets full of gadgets and food. The backpack held weapons, an emergency beacon, and spare power packs. I hitched it to a more comfortable spot and started walking.

  I moved as quickly as I could through the night. I clicked on the scanner occasionally to check my position. The terrain was rough, wild mountains and gullies full of tumbling water. I tried to pick the easier way, when I could see it. The direction I wanted to go seemed full of cliffs. The rain poured over me. Lightning came more frequently, stalking the hill above me. Thunder rattled my teeth.

  I came to a steep slope of rocks. Up didn't seem like a good choice. Lightning flickered almost constantly on the ridgeline. I went down, scrambling over wet rocks and trying to keep my feet under me.

  The slope dropped abruptly into a gully. I grabbed for handholds at the edge and barely stopped myself from sliding over and down. Mud streaked my jumpsuit. I spit it out of my mouth, gritty and chalky in my teeth. I reached gingerly with my feet, searching for toeholds to shove myself back over the lip of the gully. My boots slipped.

  I slid down the muddy slope. I grabbed at bushes and grasses. None of them could support my weight. I kept sliding farther. I heard water rushing not far below me. I risked a single glance down. I got a glimpse of white water with what looked like big rocks sticking out of it.

  My feet hit on a narrow ledge with a shock that jarred my whole body. I plastered myself to the wet mud of the side of the gully, waiting for my heart to slow down. I wasn't moving. I was safe. For a moment.

  Thunder cracked overhead. I had to move. Downstream, the rock ledge petered out. Upstream, I could see it widen slightly. I edged upstream, shifting my feet as carefully as I could.

  There wasn't anything to grab onto. I leaned against the mud wall, hoping it wouldn't come sliding down on top of me. I slid my feet a little at a time, one foot at a time, my toes barely on the ledge.

  I reached the wider spot and paused to catch my breath. The sound of an engine echoed loudly in the gully. I looked up just in time to see the search beam of a flyer sweep across the gully and away.

  I crept out on the rocky ledge again, feeling my way upstream. At least in the gully, I was mostly hidden from sight. They would have to be right overhead to spot me. I wiped mud and water out of my face and kept going. Rain poured over me. The torrent rose in the gully. Splashes of muddy water licked at my boots.

  The gully narrowed. The water roared below me, funneled into a tight space. I could almost touch the opposite wall. My ledge was getting smaller. I jammed my toes against the rock and kept going. The sides of the gully changed to rock as high as I could reach. It was smooth under my hands, washed by violent floods in the past. I hoped this current flood wouldn't reach that high. The ledge dipped down. Water swept over my feet. I inched forward, hoping the ledge would rise again. The current threatened to sweep me off into the torrent of water. I clung to the rock, wherever I found a ridge to hold, and kept going.

  The gully widened out, the water dropped. I heard it swirling into the narrower part behind me. I kept going, there was nowhere to stop and rest. The gully continued to widen out. Water roared ahead of me, though. Somewhere up ahead it got narrower again.

  The rocks above me were rougher, ledges of rock that led up like a rough ladder. I glanced up, into rain was that was growing less. The top of the gully was high over my head, but I could see ridges of stone that might give me better footing higher up. I reached high for a new handhold. The rough stone cut into my hands. I heaved myself up, one painful step at a time.

  There was a ledge above me that was wider than the rest. I rolled onto it, under an overhang and out of the rain. I lay still, resting. Another flyer thrummed overhead. I had to keep moving. I rolled back up and eased out into the rain.

  The ledge continued along the side of the gully, about halfway up. I picked my way along it, moving as fast as I dared in the rain.

  The gully bottom began to rise, the top above me dipped down. I scrambled up the slope and out of the gully. I'd climbed halfway up a small mountain. Larger ones loomed around me, misty and dark in the rain. Lightning flashed less often and farther away. The rain lessened to a drizzle. I was near a thick growth of tall trees. I wormed my way in under one of the shorter ones and rested for a few minutes.

  I wanted to stay longer. I didn't dare. I was still too close to the escape pod. I sipped a water pouch before heading back out into the dark and the wet. I kept moving, up and over the ridge and down the far side.

  I detoured around another gully, keeping well back from the edges. I heard water running below. Everywhere I stepped the ground was soaked, slippery and muddy. The rain still came down, slower now but more persistent. Cold water dripped down the back of my neck.

  I stopped to rest again under another one of the thick trees. Its leaves were narrow and rubbery, stiff under my hands as I crept into its dubious shelter. I shivered, despite the heated jacket, in the wet night. I knew why I was there, what I had to do. I closed my eyes, remembering being warm and dry and with people I cared about. I tried to remember what it felt like not to be running for my life. My feet were cold in the boots. Water had worked its way down my socks. I was miserable and lost.

  The sky overhead was slowly changing from black to gray. More flyers passed overhead. I stayed under the tree. The rain stopped for a while. The flyers circled in the distance, obviously targeting the pod and the area around it.

  I made myself comfortable. I could wait a few hours to see what the flyers were doing. I got out the scanner. I was still several miles from the coordinates. If the Patrol techs had used the same system Will had used. I could be on the far side of the planet from him. I could be thousands of miles away. Or I could be a few hundred yards away. I had to trust to my luck.

  I pulled off my boots. My feet were pale and wrinkled and cold. I rubbed them and switched to a dry pair of socks. I found something to eat. I was careful not to leave anything behind. I packed everything up and used the pack as a pillow. I pulled the jacket around me and tried to sleep.

  I woke when the rain picked up again. Fat drops slithered through the leathery leaves to splash around me. Cold water hitting me in the ear woke me up completely.

  The flyers were gone. I listened for them before I left the shelter of the tree. I heard nothing of their engines. I couldn't see them through the rain. It was time to move again.

  The rain was pouring down again. The thunder and lightning of the night before were absent, though. I checked my direction again with the scanner. I had to climb a high ridge that was covered with more of the trees. I hitched the pack higher on my back and started walking.

  My legs had gone stiff. It was painful until I worked out some of the stiffness. I made it to the top and stopped to look down the other side.

  Ridges marched to the horizon, rising higher and more rugged with each long slope upwards. Mountains wreathed in mist seemed to float beyond them. Another curtain of gray rain drifted down the slope in front of me, erasing any view beyond the steep rocky hillside below me. The trees didn't grow there, it was covered with a tough grass that tangled my feet with each step.

  I worked my way to the bottom, sticking to the rockier parts. It was almost a series of cliffs, I had to lower myself down a few steep drops. The grasses cut into my hands. I stood at the bottom, looking up at another slope of trees and rocks and sucking the cuts on my hands.

  Lowell had given me three days. I'd used almost one already. I had to make contact soon. I checked the scanner again. I was close to the coordinates. I switched it over to scan for biomass, specifically human signatures. I got nothing. I put it away and climbed up the next slope.

  I huddled at the top, on the edge of a very sheer cliff.
Water gushed and tumbled below, white and brown and evil looking. I got out the scanner again. Rain poured around me. I still got nothing useful from the scanner.

  I picked upstream and started walking again. The rain gradually tapered off. I followed the gash in the earth until it ended in a narrow gathering of streams. I was miles out of my way by then. I stopped near one of the trees to eat again. My feet were starting to blister from the wet. I changed socks again, squeezing out the water I could.

  The rain held off for the rest of the afternoon. I slogged my way through streams and flat meadows that had turned into marshes. Cliffs of yellowish rock rose around me, cutting the marshes into mazes of channels.

  The sun broke through as it was setting, washing the cliffs with angry orange light. Insects rose from the marshes, huge things with gauzy wings that buzzed around me as I waded through the ankle deep water.

  I stopped for another reading on the scanner. The coordinates were behind me now, somewhere in the foothills. I turned around, looking for a way back into the maze of gullies and steep canyons. I spotted a flyer in the far distance, the sun glinted off it briefly. I was wasting time. I had to make contact and soon. But I'd seen no sign of Will or Tayvis or any of the others. The coordinates had to be wrong.

  I found a rock to sit on, out of the water. The sunlight slowly faded. A breeze riffled the water. The clouds overhead slowly broke apart. A creature hooted mournfully from the trees. I opened my pack and tucked the scanner back in. The breeze pulled at my damp hair. I lifted one hand, pushing my hair back away from my face. Then froze. The breeze carried the scent of woodsmoke. I closed my eyes against the rush of images that smell brought. I wasn't on Dadilan, I wasn't about to be burned at the stake, I told myself fiercely. I couldn't afford to panic. I had to think.

  Smoke meant either a forest fire or people. I turned my head, trying to catch the elusive smell. It was gone as capriciously as it had come. I studied the cliffs in the distance, the low yellow ones. Low growths of a different kind of tree dotted the talus slopes at their base.

  I stepped back into the marsh and headed for the nearest cliff, sniffing as I walked. I caught another whiff of smoke. The land slowly rose, drying out. I walked on grasses and gravel now. I tried to keep my footsteps quiet. They still seemed to echo from the cliffs around me.

  The breeze tugged my hair, gaining strength as the sun set. It teased me, blowing from one direction and then another. I caught the scent of smoke again. I stopped, turning with the breeze as I tried to tell where it came from.

  The night was growing dark. The moon wasn't up yet and the clouds blocked most of the light. The sunset was fading. I didn't want to put the goggles on yet. I turned slowly, breathing with the breeze.

  There, that canyon seemed the most likely source of the smoke. I started walking up the floor of the canyon, wide here. My footsteps sounded loud, crunching on gravel, and quiet on sand. I avoided the clumps of grass. They tangled my feet and almost tripped me. The low trees rustled in the breeze. I moved slower as the night grew darker.

  I stopped to sniff the breeze again and heard footsteps moving up behind me. They were quick, soft and stealthy. I whirled, expecting an attack from the Trythians. Dark shapes rushed at me from both sides. I ducked to the front and was caught by someone I hadn't noticed. My arms were grabbed, pulled back and to the side. The one in front of me pulled my face up, towards the lingering light of sunset.

  "Let her go," he said quietly. "Welcome back, Dace. We were beginning to think you got lost somewhere."

  "I forgot to ask directions, Vance." I would have recognized his voice in the dark anytime. I'd spent several weeks listening to it and not much else on Serrimonia. The others let go of my arms.

  "They'll be waiting to hear from you back at camp," he said. "This way."

  He took my hand to lead me off into the dark. The others melted back into the shadows. Sentries, I guessed.

  I would have pulled my hand free except it was too dark for me to see anything. Vance knew where he was headed. At least that's what I told myself. His hand was warm. And human.

  "Watch your step," he whispered. He reached for me, his other hand on my waist steadying me as I climbed over a tangle of fallen branches. His touch lingered after I was over the pile. I deliberately moved away from him. He tugged my hand, leading me up a side canyon.

  We came to a pile of rocks. The moon rose, its light washing over the landscape and playing tag with the clouds. Vance let go of my hand to climb over the rockfall. I climbed after him.

  It was a jumbled mess. I picked my way carefully across, trying to avoid the dark shadows that masked holes anywhere from a few inches deep to feet deep. The clouds covered the moon as I reached the far side. It was dark. I missed my footing and slipped down the boulder I was climbing. Vance caught me before I landed on the ground. He set me on my feet. He stayed close. I pushed at him after too long of a moment.

  "We're almost there," he said quietly. He still didn't move.

  I tried to push past him. "I'm fine now." I'd caught my breath and my balance. Or so I thought.

  He brushed his hand over my cheek. "What's Tayvis to you, Dace?"

  I pushed his hand away. "He's alive, isn't he?" I was suddenly afraid for Tayvis. And myself.

  "He's fine. He's set himself up as the Commander of the unit. He isn't right for you. You don't really know him, or what he's capable of doing."

  "I know him better than you think. And you have no idea what I'm capable of doing." I smelled the smoke now, thin and barely noticeable in the damp air.

  He stepped back from me. The moon came out of hiding. I saw nothing in his face, nothing to betray what he was thinking or feeling. "Up this way," he said.

  He didn't try to hold my hand. He led the way up a steep scrambling path that only animals with four legs should have climbed. I went up using my hands as much as my feet.

  There was a cave, hidden under a fold of rock. I followed Vance over a loose tumble of rocks and inside. Firelight washed the back of the cave with yellow orange light. I took one step past the rocks and stopped.

  Tayvis stood near the fire at the back of the cave. Nothing else mattered in that moment. No one else existed. I walked towards him, moving faster with each step.

  He met me halfway, sweeping me into a fierce hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him tight. He smelled of woodsmoke and stone. I didn't care. He held me tightly.

  "You made it," he said, relief evident in his voice.

  "So did you," I answered.

  He kissed me. I was oblivious to the audience watching us. He was here, I was here. We were both alive. That was all that mattered.

  Chapter 38

  Someone cleared his throat, loud and obvious.

  "Entertaining, but not really useful," he commented.

  I stepped back from Tayvis, finding myself blushing. I slipped my pack off and set it on a rock, bending to hide my face. I opened the pack and pulled out the emergency beacon.

  "Late afternoon," I said, "day after tomorrow. This needs to be set. Alpha channel if everything is clear, beta if trouble is expected, and zed if they need warned off."

  "Who?" one of the men, vaguely familiar to me, asked, leaning over the beacon.

  "Lowell is bringing in one fleet and eight battle groups. They should be here within forty hours, if everything goes as planned."

  "Nothing ever goes as planned," Tayvis murmured as he sat next to me.

  "Which is why the three codes. We didn't have time to work out anything more complicated. The voice unit was too heavy to bring." I set the beacon aside and pulled out the next item.

  "Emergency rations, how thoughtful," Tayvis said.

  "The diet here is short on several essential minerals," I answered. "A few of these should help. Those who've been here the longest need it most. You really don't want to know how they found out."

  He took the package without comment and passed it on.

  I saved the best items for
last. Besides the few things still in my pockets and the hand scanner, I had four very lethal blast rifles in the bottom of the pack. I pulled the first one free and was awarded several whistles.

  "I have four," I said. "And only a dozen extra power packs. I wasn't sure what the situation was going to be when I got back here."

  "Without the rain we might not have been here," Tayvis admitted. "What did you promise Lowell to get him to give you these?" He held up one of the rifles.

  "You don't want to know, Tayvis." I settled by the empty pack.

  He passed the rifle on to someone else and sat next to me. The others shifted away from us, closer to the fire where the light was better. Tayvis took my hand, pulling it into his lap. "Tell me."

  "After you tell me what's been happening here."

  "They blew up the Electoriate. And the Triad. And then Lilliasa marched into Conclave and announced that she knew who the traitors were. They burned Sylena's estate the next day." He squeezed my hand. "Lilliasa got Mayguena stoned to death. And then proclaimed herself the heir to the Triad and took over. You were right about her. She's ruthless and bloodthirsty. She led them here, hunting us. She blamed everything on Sylena, Mayguena, and the human slaves."

  "She wanted power, not change. I misjudged her."

  He shrugged. "I don't think it would have made much difference if Mayguena had been the one to survive."

  "You're probably right." I leaned on his shoulder, yawning. I'd worn myself out, slogging through rain and climbing cliffs of mud. "Who made it?"

  "Here? We started with about a hundred. Some stole flyers and made it this far. Lilliasa is camped by the foothills with her army. They've been catching us a few at a time."

  "But as soon as the rain stops she's going to be here in force." I sighed. "The rain was clearing up this afternoon."

  "So we hold out for two days until Lowell brings the Fleet in." Tayvis slid his arm around me. "What did you promise him, Dace?"