The kids didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
“I—I ran last cycle, err, because I was afraid. Of you. B-because you’re horrible,” Dollop explained matter-of-factly. “But I p-prayed for g-guidance, and She has placed me in your s-s-service. For wh-what purpose, I’m not quite sure yet. But the Way is quite clear on this matter.”
“Well, whoever She is, thank her for us,” Micah said, cracking his gum.
“Does that mean you’ll take us to the Citadel?” asked Phoebe.
At the sound of the word, Dollop hid himself once again, and for a few tense seconds, they thought he had run off. But then he hesitantly reappeared just long enough to motion them to follow.
Dollop led them away from the Foundry tracks, keeping far ahead and safely out of reach. He vanished into shadows and shimmering shrubs but paused every now and then to make sure that they were close. As the kids walked, they marveled at the Chokarai. The forest teemed with unfamiliar calls, chirping and chattering and screeching in the canopy. Rays of sun broke through the silvery treetops and dappled the ground, which shone with clumps of gritty, unrefined ore. Poking up through the underbrush were tiny tubes no bigger than straws. They were new growths, sparkling sprouts just starting to stretch toward the sky.
Phoebe chewed on her Honeygum and stared at the shoots in wonder. More of that gray powder, the same stuff that blasted up from the big tree, was drifting down and settling on the little tubes. Was the big tree feeding these little ones? Or was this maybe some kind of pollen or spore?
Dollop popped his head out from behind a shrub, startling the kids.
“Wh-why don’t you cruel and evil bleeders know how to, um, get to the Ci-Ci-Ci-t-t-t…” He trailed off, unable to say the name of the place.
“We ain’t exactly from around here,” Micah noted.
“B-but Foundry is in the Ci-Ci-Ci-t-t…in there. Bleeders are F-Foundry, so why don’t you—”
“We’re not with the Foundry, I swear,” said Phoebe.
Dollop stared at them, his massive amber eyes blinking in befuddlement. Then they bugged out in sudden horror, and his limbs began to rattle.
“Th-then don’t go there. No, n-never go. It’s, um, a terrible place. Hor-r-rible things happen there, and that. Ancient, evil, uns-s-speakable things!”
“You don’t understand. We have to get to the Citadel,” she pleaded. “The Foundry, they took…someone. And we have to save him.”
“They nabbed her pa,” Micah chimed in.
She shot him a warning look, but he just shrugged in reply.
“Y-your people?” Dollop asked delicately. “Your clan?”
“My father,” explained Phoebe.
“But why?” Dollop was confused. “Why d-does Foundry hunt bleeders?”
She winced. “We don’t know. And actually, if it’s not too much trouble, would you mind not calling us ‘bleeders’? It’s kind of gross.”
“Oh-oh.” Dollop rubbed a cavity in his forehead. The kids hadn’t noticed it before, but now that he was closer they could make it out clearly. His body was oddly patterned with different kinds and colors of metal, but his head was like a badly assembled jigsaw puzzle. And right in the middle of it was a dent or a missing piece. “Wh-what do I name you, then?” he asked.
“Well, we’re humans,” she said. “But I’d rather you just call me Phoebe.”
“And I’m Micah.”
“Fuh-fee…bee. Mick…h-huh. Hoo…man.” Dollop let out a tinny warble that must have been a laugh. “Your names are s-s-silly.”
“Look who’s talkin’!” huffed Micah.
“Anyway, we better get going. Lead the way, Mr. Guide,” she said.
Dollop considered this, his bulbous eyes going wide. “Guide…” He mumbled the word to himself. “I’m a guide.” He stroked something on his chest again—it was a brilliant golden symbol, a circle split down the middle by a crooked, vertical line like the teeth of two interlocking gears. “Of-of course. That’s what I am. Um, th-that’s my function. I’m a guide, I—I show you the path! I’ll lead you to the Way!”
The kids nodded at him, uncertain smiles on their faces.
“Thank you, Makina. Praise the gears!” the little guy said, leaping off in sudden exuberant worship. As he darted in and out of the trees, they saw that he was popping off his detachable limbs and rearranging them. When he danced back into view, he was taller, now chest high to Phoebe, and he no longer loped on all fours like a chraida. Instead, he had reassembled himself to mimic human proportions and was off and running upright on two legs.
“Come, evil blee—er, um…C-come on, follow me!”
Dollop scampered off, but Phoebe held Micah back.
“Just be careful, okay?” she whispered.
“About what?”
“Don’t tell him my dad works for the Foundry.”
“I didn’t,” he said defensively.
“I know, I’m just saying keep it between you and me.”
“Sure, whatever,” he said. “Come on, we’re losing him!”
Dollop was so swift and energetic now that the kids had to run to keep up with their newly transfigured guide. As the morning got brighter, the forest shone with vibrant life. Soon, the trees thinned out, and a wide rugged lane appeared.
“Wait,” Phoebe whispered. Dollop skidded to a stop and came running back. “This road. Who uses it?”
“A-a-anyone. Everyone. Umm, there are a few checkpoints, bu-but we can go around those.” He considered her question. “That’s a good thing, r-r-right? A road to lead us to the Ci-Ci-t-t-ta—”
She motioned for him to be quiet, and the three of them peered through the trees. Far down the road, there were little glimmers of light—moving reflections on the silver leaves. She focused, trying to make out any sounds of danger. Phoebe couldn’t be sure, and it might have been nothing, but she thought she could hear engines in the distance.
“Trucks. Must be Foundry,” she said.
“Good,” muttered Micah. He snatched up a fallen pipe branch from the forest floor and gave it a few hearty swings to test it out. “They’ll never know what hit ’em.”
He stalked toward the road, but she pulled him back.
“Don’t be stupid!” she hissed. “We barely managed to escape last night, and now you want to pick a fight?”
He wrestled free from her grip. “Look, maybe half a Honeygum is enough for you, but I’m starving. And I ain’t exactly in the mood to eat a buncha metal.” Micah motioned to the forest all around them. “Where there’s Foundry, there’s people. And where there’s people, there’s food.”
“No way,” she insisted. “We have to lie low and stay out of sight.”
“What about water, huh? It don’t take long to drop dead from thirst, and I ain’t about to go down like that.”
“Dollop,” she said to their little guide, “where’s the nearest stream?”
“S-stream?”
“Yes. We need to find some water.”
“Uh, no. No water in Mehk. Gives us r-r-rustgut.”
Micah smirked and gestured to Dollop, as if that settled their dispute. She felt a twinge of panic. How long could they feasibly last before dehydration set in? Micah gave his club another test swing.
“Anyhoo, here’s the plan. Both of you, grab a stick, and I’ll take point. It’ll be a quick raid, in and out. We got the element of surprise so—”
“I’m not going to let you do this.”
“Try and stop me!” he blustered. “I ain’t gonna pass this up just ’cause you’re scared. No guts, no glory.”
Phoebe scoffed. “Isn’t that from some stupid show?”
His face turned bright red, and a vein throbbed in his forehead. Dollop hid behind a thicket, looking fearfully back and forth between the kids.
“I said no, and
that’s that,” she insisted, crossing her arms firmly over her chest.
“And I said YES!”
“You’re out of line. Don’t forget that I’m in charge, and you’re just a servant. Rule number three, Micah—you follow me.”
He trembled with rage, fists clenched and jaw jutted.
“We don’t stand a chance against the Foundry,” she said. “We will have to find food and water somewhere else.”
“Where?” he demanded through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know. But we will.”
“You’re gonna get us killed,” he snarled.
“No. I’m trying to stop YOU from getting us killed.” She stared him down. “Dollop. We have to stay away from this road, from all roads, any place that might be crowded. Is there another way we can go where no one can find us?”
Their guide peered out at them from behind the bushes and pinched his eyes shut. It almost looked like he was in pain as he rubbed the missing gap on his head, like he was trying to massage out a lost memory.
“W-we could…maybe…probably…g-g-go through the brasslands?”
His hesitation worried Phoebe, but she didn’t see that there was much choice. And she didn’t want Micah to see her waver. She felt bad, pulling rank on him like that when he was clearly just trying to help, but it was a terrible idea. They couldn’t afford to take such reckless risks.
“Good. Let’s go,” she ordered.
“Y-yes!” Dollop nodded enthusiastically. “I am a g-guide. I—I will guide you, and whatnot!”
Their little ally headed back into the forest, looking around for a moment to try and get his bearings. Phoebe followed, ignoring Micah as he threw down his stick and stood rooted in place. As Dollop finally found his way and skipped off, she heard the boy let loose a string of angry curses.
But after a moment, he stomped after them to catch up, and Phoebe breathed a sigh of relief.
icah didn’t so much as look at Phoebe while they chewed their Honeygum and crunched through the Chokarai. Mechanical screeches and calls faded as the path led through a sickly swath of the metal forest. The trees were limp with thinning leaves, their trunks brutally gouged and spray-painted with numbers, and piles of ore had been ripped from the ground, then dumped beside the open scars.
“A tr-tr-tragedy,” Dollop muttered mournfully. “The Covenant will not, um, stand for this. No, n-n-not one bit.”
“Covenant?” Phoebe asked.
“Wh-where?” Dollop said excitedly, stopping in his tracks to look around.
“No, I was just asking.”
“Oh, r-r-right.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The Covenant is a myst-sterious, uh, super-secret army of freedom f-f-fighters, sworn to defend Mehk. They s-strike in the night, s-swoop from the skies, and er, even burst up from underground!” Dollop said, leaping up dramatically like a toddler during storytime. “They can k-k-kill with a stare! Ex-explode things with their minds! Ka-bo-o-o-om!”
“Uh-huh,” Micah said, not in the least bit convinced. Phoebe wasn’t sure what to make of it. It sounded ridiculous, but then again, she had already seen so much that she never would have believed.
They arrived at the edge of the Chokarai. Beyond a border of scraggly trees lay a sprawling grove of symmetrical stumps. These were not ragged and splintered logs, but uniform and meticulously severed just above the ground. The clear-cut scar stretched for miles.
“The C-C-Covenant will fix this,” Dollop vowed as he looked out upon the leveled forest. “They will m-make them all pay. Uh, you’ll see.”
“Wicked,” Micah breathed in wonder.
But she didn’t share his sentiment. This was horrible. These woods were the chraida’s home. No wonder they had wanted to kill her and Micah. She was about to tell him as much when she noticed he was not looking at the stumps at all. He was shielding his eyes to stare up at the sky.
To her astonishment, it was not a flat expanse of color and clouds. Instead, she saw a spectacular writhing nebula of liquid blues and yellows, shimmering like reflections in a puddle of oil. Rather than a sun, there was a glowing ring suspended overhead, halfway between horizon and zenith. They squinted against the glare, trying to make sense of it. The ring must have been more than a hundred fiery celestial bodies, like a circle of smoldering coals.
“Oh good!” Dollop said cheerily, chomping on a handful of crusty gray seeds and spitting out their shells. He gestured to the suns. “O-only a couple more clicks until the fusion. We’re making good time. Th-this-a-way!”
The sight of food made their empty stomachs grumble, a rude reminder of their predicament. Phoebe picked up one of the discarded shells and sniffed it hungrily. She would have tasted it if it didn’t smell exactly like silver polish.
Dollop led them around the clear-cut grove to a spot where the forest gave way to rolling hills covered in tall golden grass that swayed in the breeze. The glaring solar halo reflected off the amber waves like flames. Jutting up at irregular intervals throughout the landscape were tall, curling spires. They reminded Phoebe of brown stalagmites, but it was hard to make out what they might actually be.
When Dollop led them to the first glinting hill, she realized at once that the sea of knee-high golden reeds were thin and sharp as a fencer’s foil.
“Lemme guess,” Micah said, flinching as one of the blades scratched him. “The brasslands?”
“Pr-pr-precisely!” Dollop said. “Now if my c-calculations are correct we—”
The blades of brass suddenly thrashed around him, and the air exploded into a fury of spinning black wings. Dollop screamed and dove, and the kids ducked as a flock of agitated creatures buzzed past. They soared off into the sky, carried aloft not by wings, but by a series of fringed propellers.
Micah’s eyes bugged out, and he clutched his throat. He hocked and forced something down with a hard swallow.
“You okay?” she asked. It was the first thing she had said to him since their argument.
“What do you care?” he snapped. “Them stupid things made me swallow my gum, is all.”
“C-close one,” Dollop said as he picked up his arm, which had come loose. He pointed to the kids with the detached limb. “G-g-gotta look out for vetchels. They’ll, um-um, eat your eyes right out of your head. V-very rude indeed.” He shoved his arm back in place and continued on his way.
As they trotted through the brass, Phoebe was grateful that she had wrapped her foot in protective metal leaves. She had to walk carefully, folding the reeds down with each step and then leaping forward to avoid the whipping recoil. Even so, the sharp reeds often snapped across her calves, leaving crisscrossed scratches. It was slow going, but the brush eventually grew high above their heads, and she no longer had to worry about the razorlike tips.
Now that she was closer, Phoebe could see that the jagged brown spires scattered across the land were made from layers of dead, windblown brass reeds. They were hardened into sweeping shapes that wound up from wide bases to create ribbon-like structures reaching ten to fifteen feet overhead.
The fiery ring in the sky rose and contracted as the day progressed. It might have astounded Phoebe had she not been so uncomfortable. She peeled off Micah’s jacket and used it to fan herself, but it did little to break the heat. She wanted to say something to Micah, but he didn’t want anything to do with her. Any mention of food or water was likely to result in a nasty “I told you so.”
Dollop must have read their body language. He looked back at them with sympathy pooling in his big eyes. “Poor Phoebe-Micah. You are huh-hungry.”
She nodded, but Micah just made a dismissive grunt.
“I-I’m sorry. I c-can’t help you,” he said, repressing a little shudder of revulsion. “I don’t know w-w-where to find you any elderly humans.”
The kids shared a baffled look.
“Y-you know
, for you to…eat.”
The kids burst into laughter. “We don’t eat old people!” she corrected.
“I th-thought…” Dollop blinked rapidly, bewildered. “I thought that after you h-h-hatched from the head of your bir-birthing host, you ate—”
Micah chuckled. “Hatched from what?”
“I think you may have the wrong idea about us.”
“Where’d you learn that crud anyway?”
“Ev-ev-everyone knows that. It’s, um, common knowledge.”
“Well, you oughta get your facts straight,” Micah retorted.
“Hmm, I—I wish an axial were here. They’d s-straighten this out. I—I was raised in a housing of the W-Waybound, and they taught me everything I know…ev-everything I can remember, at least. They t-t-taught me all about you evil bleeders and your f-filthy language. Uh, n-no offense.”
“None taken,” said Phoebe. “I guess.”
“Ar-are you certain you don’t, umm, feed on your elderly?”
“Positive,” she nodded.
“That’s a relief. But strange…I—I must have it mixed up. I do that s-s-sometimes. B-because the axials are wise beyond measure and are n-n-never wrong. They’re the ones who, uh, showed me the Way.”
“What way is that?” Micah asked.
They crested the top of a hill, and a surge of warm wind blew over them, cooling the sweat on their bodies. The brasslands stretched as far as the eye could see, a golden ocean roiling in the breeze, crashing up against corkscrew spires. The solar ring had merged into a single blazing orb overhead, firing up the sky with swirling orange and crimson rivulets that reflected off the waving stalks in a dazzling inferno.
“The Way is h-harmony,” Dollop trilled.
As the three of them took in the majestic view, a shape rolled in the distance. It was nearly the same color as the reeds, a tumbling and bucking mass that flowed over the hills and dove out of sight.
The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge Page 13
