Outside, a soft drizzle soaked the grass, falling from a dismal sky, and Tassin retreated inside again. The snail was already moving, and he walked back to examine the spot where they had spent the night. A depression showed where the shell had fallen, and the deep paw prints of huge wolves surrounded it. Four trenches had been dug in the hard ground where the wolves had tried to tunnel under the shell, searching for a way in. He marvelled at their strength, for the holes were deep, the tough grass dug up in chunks. Catching up with the snail, he studied its shell. Faint scoring marked its edge, white lines where teeth and claws had scratched the hard surface. The door, now on top of the tail, showed more damage. Deep gouges had been bitten in it, strips of the layered structure hung off, and scratches covered it. He patted the indigo beast, glad of its protection.
Although he could have used the cyber on the wolves while out in the open, controlling fifteen animals would have been difficult. Those behind him would not have been influenced as powerfully, and some strong-minded beasts might have attacked. When the cyber had radiated fear, it had not affected all of the wolves, but fear was contagious, and their fellows had infected those that had escaped the cyber's influence.
After the encounter with the wolves, Sabre ranged less far afield to hunt. He spent more time with the snail, and as a consequence, Tassin. Although he enjoyed her company, she unsettled him. Despite the fact that she had warmed towards him, or perhaps because of it, she made him nervous and self-conscious. He knew that in her estimation, he was only the local riffraff. The reality was far worse. He was just a broken killing machine, and not supposed to have feelings. The mocking voice shouted that hated name often from that dark recess in his mind. Cyborg! He had a piece of metal attached to his skull, not to mention that which was welded to his bones, and he was covered with scars. Certainly she must think him as ugly as he knew himself to be, yet he wondered why he cared what she thought of him. The pain that was growing inside him would never have a voice, for who cared what a cyber felt? He would not be around long enough for it to matter, anyway.
The snail's crawl brought them to a rough scrubland, where the beast struggled between the bushes, pushing them aside with brute force. Sabre knew that soon they would have to leave it, and did not look forward to losing their warm, comfortable mobile home. The hunting was poor, since they had left the herds of grazing beasts behind, and the wolves too, he hoped.
Sabre was eating a cooked tuber when he became aware that the snail had stopped. Tassin sat opposite, peeling a bulb. They had decided to eat lunch inside, due to the wet weather. He rose and clapped his hands. Outside, he discovered that a belt of scrubby trees blocked the way, too dense for the beast to penetrate. The snail waved its feelers in agitation, its head raised high as its eyestalks roved back and forth, searching for a way through. Sabre asked the cyber to remove the compulsion and replace it temporarily with a need for sleep. The beast relaxed and drew in its eyestalks and feelers, leaving the head a blunt, blind nub. He re-entered the shell to inform Tassin of the problem. She stopped peeling a tuber and groaned.
"You mean now we have to walk?"
"Unless you want to live in the grasslands."
She cocked her head. "Tempting, but no. I'd rather find somewhere where they have real houses, with indoor plumbing and hot baths."
"I thought as much. Servants and princes, too."
She ignored his teasing. "Do we have to leave now? It's raining."
"No, I've made the snail sleep. We can wait for better weather."
"Good."
The next day dawned warm and sunny, and they sorted through the collection of oddments that the snail people had given them, keeping only the necessities, since now they would have to carry them. The rest they stored in the space at the top of the curving shell, where perhaps the next tenants would find them. Sabre shouldered the bulk of the equipment, and left a bundle for Tassin to carry. When he released the snail from its enforced slumber, its eyes and feelers popped out and waved about as if it tried to comprehend how it had ended up so far from home, and alone. He gave it a pat as it turned back towards the grasslands, and hoped it would meet no wolves while it was alone. It stood a far better chance of survival once it had rejoined a herd.
Tassin watched the snail leave, and her wistful expression told Sabre that she already missed its comforts. He headed into the scrub, and she followed, glancing back often at the receding snail. He could understand why the grassland tribes had settled in the snails. People grew attached to a home, especially a living one. The discomforts of traipsing through the bush soon had the Queen cursing, as branches scratched any bare skin they found.
That night, Tassin had the task of pitching the leather tents. Sabre returned from his hunt with two scrawny rabbits to find her flushed and bad-tempered. The tents leant drunkenly, sagging in places. Evidently they had fought her every inch of the way. He fixed them while she lighted the fire, smiling at her newfound ineptitude. That night they rediscovered how hard the ground was, and woke stiff and aching in the morning.
When they set out, Tassin strode ahead with grim determination, clearly consumed by a desire to find a village or town with soft beds and hot baths. This amused Sabre, who knew, from the poor soil and twisted trees, that no one would live there. As dusk fell, they crossed a stretch of crumbling tar road, and Sabre stopped to gaze along it, but it vanished into thick bush.
A little further on, they came across more ruined road and the remains of brick walls. He caught a flash of distant light through the bush, a reflection of the sunset, and made out the faint outlines of tall towers. It could only be a ruined city, a little off their present course, and he decided to investigate it the next day, since the radiation level was normal.
When they had set up camp and Sabre roasted a pair of rabbits over the fire, he looked up from his task. "There's a ruined city to the west. I want to explore it tomorrow."
"Why? That's a waste of time. I want to find civilisation, not go poking through some old ruin. What do you think you'll find? And what about the curse?"
"I don't know what I'll find, but it might be something useful. As for radiation, it's clean. It must have been gassed."
She sighed. "If there were people it would be different, but I don't see what could still be useful after five hundred years. Everything will be rotten."
He sliced off a chunk of meat and gave it to her. "No, they made things then that never rotted; clothes, knives, shoes, all kinds of useful things. It might have been looted already, but we won't know unless we look."
"You just want to explore it," she accused.
"Okay, there's that too."
Tassin stared into the fire. "Oh, all right, but only for a few hours."
"Thank you, Your Highness."
Her eyes flicked up to meet his. "I didn't mean to sound condescending."
His brows shot up. "You've never worried about that before."
"I've been foolish. I realise that now. You can stop calling me 'Your Highness', it sounds silly out here. Besides, a princess is referred to as 'Your Highness', a queen is 'Your Majesty'."
"I'm glad you can see that now. Even a queen should have tact, don't you agree?"
She smiled. "You've taught me a lot. I'm beginning to understand."
He hesitated, pondering. "You know, after all these months of traipsing through the countryside with you, it almost feels like I belong here."
"I'm glad. You deserve a good life. When I get my kingdom back, I think I'll make you a knight."
"Sir Sabre. Sounds sort of silly, if you ask me."
She giggled. "You'll have to adopt a surname. Something grand, like..."
Sabre raised a hand and turned his head, listening. A distant, lonely call drifted on the night air. The harsh, klaxon cry trailed off in a mournful wail, like a squashed bagpipe.
Tassin grinned. "Donkeys!"
"Better than rabbit."
She looked shocked, then glared. "Don't you dare! If you kill one o
f them, I'll never forgive you."
"Why?"
"They're beasts of burden, friends of man. They're supposed to be holy, that's why they carry a cross on their backs. They, and the horse, have done more to help mankind than any other beast. I will not repay that by eating them." She paused, looking thoughtful. "You could catch some for us to ride, though."
Sabre chuckled. "I'm not riding a donkey."
"Fine, I'll ride, you can lead it. At least I'm not too proud to ride a donkey."
"Pride has nothing to do with it. They have backbones like knives, and I have no wish to be sawn in two. Anyway, how will you catch one? They're wild," he teased.
"You have the cyber, not me."
He shot her a martyred look. "Right."
Chapter Twenty
The next morning, Sabre headed for the city, curious to find out what was left of it. Gleaming towers rose from a forest of tall trees that the city's ancient waste nourished, their roots tapped into sewers and reservoirs. Tassin stared in wonder at the glass towers that flashed in the sun. Concrete roads ran between them in dead straight lines, built with precision and uniformity. Time had taken a toll, however, and trees grew in the concrete paving, lifting it into humps. Broken windows stared like hollow eyes, and smashed glass littered the street. Weeds sprouted in every nook and cranny, and creepers spread their verdure over glass and steel. Rust wept blood-red streaks down stained white structures, and cracks crawled like crooked snakes along crumbling walls.
Sabre led the way down the main street, broken glass crunching under his boots as he studied the ancient city with keen interest. The functional architecture was blocky and uninspired, designed to satisfy the needs of a growing population. How strange, he mused, that these almost modern buildings were ancient ruins, and the medieval castles of Arlin were new. Everything was back to front on this planet. The old had ousted the new, now that technology was lost.
Furtive movement amongst the buildings told him that the city now had four-footed inhabitants, and he wondered how safe it was to walk amongst these tumbled-down buildings whose fabric was rotting away. Sagging, rust-riddled skywalks hung overhead, and walls leant perilously, the encroaching trees that would eventually obliterate the city undermining their foundations.
Sabre kept a wary eye on the unstable structures, and stayed in the middle of the road. Some walls had collapsed, strewing rubble, mixed with twisted, rusty reinforcing, into the street. Piles of rust, glass and plastic, some with a skeletal framework, were all that remained of once shiny hover cars. Tassin picked up bits of glass and bright plastic, plaguing him with questions.
Near the end of the street, a squat, sturdy building hunched between two tall neighbours like a poor relation. Its windows were intact, although the walls were cracked, and he guessed that the windows were armoured glass. He stopped and considered it, filled with a strong urge to walk past. Tassin would never know the difference, yet he did not have the right to make the decision. Denying her the choice was wrong. Her life was more important, for his was surely not going to be his own for too much longer.
Tassin touched his arm, dragging him from his thoughts. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Testing the door, he found it unlocked and forced it open against the rubble on the other side, then inspected the place before allowing Tassin to enter. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, and the rest was poised to take the plunge, sagging concrete blocks hanging from twisted steel mesh. Rows of shelves and racks lined the showroom, stacked with silver and crystal tubes covered with a patina of grey dust. Hundreds of lasers, sonic blasters, rocket launchers, explosives and power packs stocked the shop. Every instrument of modern destruction known to man, and they were only a little out-dated. He gestured to the piles.
"There's the answer to your problem."
She eyed him. "Oh? And how will a pile of dirty poles help me?"
"They're weapons, like the ones the cyber had when it first came here. The ones that shot blue fire and made big bangs."
"They don't look the same."
"That's because these are a little old fashioned, so they're bigger than the ones I had. With these, you could defeat Torrian, Grissom and Bardok combined. No one could stand against you."
"How do they work?" She still looked doubtful, but her eyes held a dawning eagerness.
"Never mind that now. We have to figure out how to get them across the desert and through the Death Zone, if that's still what you want?"
"I want to go home more than anything, Sabre."
He became brisk. "Fine. They won't work for long, of course. Only until the power packs run out, but the kings won't know that."
"But we can't carry all these."
"No, we'll have to find something with wheels."
Sabre went over to a glass cabinet and took out a silver laser rifle, checking the mechanism. Finding it in good working order, he examined the ones on the walls, then opened drawers and inspected the selection of hand lasers and rocket launchers. The shop's inventory was in good condition. The almost airtight building had protected it from the elements, and the weapons were made from non-corrosive metal. He discarded several weapons that were a little stiff, since there were more than enough good ones. Most of the power packs were fully charged, and he stacked the weapons he had examined on a counter.
Sadness stole over Sabre while he worked. This meant the end of their adventure through strange lands together, and of her dependence on him for protection and provision. Once Tassin no longer needed him, his owner would take him back, so helping her speeded his doom. He would be returned to the horrible existence of a cyber-controlled clone. Thrusting the gloomy thoughts aside, he reminded himself that returning Tassin to her kingdom was far more important than the fate of a damaged cyborg. When the pile of weapons was large enough, he left the shop in search of wheeled transport.
Wheels were hard to find in a city where hover cars had been the main transport, but he discovered some bicycles in a sports shop. Modern people still kept fit, he mused. They drove hover cars, then tortured themselves cycling around recreational parks. The bicycles' wheels were made from a non-corrosive alloy, but the frames were rusted and the rubber tyres had perished to black dust. Tyres were optional, though, and he collected the items he would need to build a cart.
The sports shop proved to be a gold mine of equipment, and, while he searched the piles of goods, Tassin picked through heaps of rotten clothing and shoes. It took him the rest of the day to build a cart from bicycle parts and a plastic box attached to a shaft. In the afternoon, he killed a city-dwelling pig for supper, and after they had eaten they spread their bedding in a relatively intact building, safe from marauding animals and the vagaries of the weather.
Gearn stopped and cursed. The snail's track, which he had followed into the scrubby trees, turned and headed back into the plains. He examined the ground, and found where the Queen and the warrior mage had left it and entered the scrubland. Now they would be much harder to track, and he increased his pace, afraid the trail would fade. The Queen's track was easy to follow, but the warrior mage's footprints were almost non-existent. He swore as thorn bushes caught his robes, and his back ached from bending to examine the ground. The trail led him around the worst of the terrain, but in places became difficult to follow. He lost it in an expanse of tough grass, then spotted a footprint beside an area of flat black stone.
Gearn studied the gritty surface, which stretched away in both directions, puzzled by it. Realisation dawned with a wash of cold dread, and he looked up. A shining tower glinted above the trees. He recoiled with a cry, backing away from the ruined city. Making signs to ward off evil, he retreated into the scrubland and made a camp, glaring at the glass towers that loomed above the trees.
Entering one of the ancient, accursed cities was forbidden. Countless scrolls described the tales of their pestilence. Conjuring a fire and a meal of roast beef and steamed vegetables accompanied by a musky red wine, he wondered if the w
arrior mage had magic to counter the evil pestilence, or whether he was ignorant of the danger. He prodded the fire with a stick.
There was nothing to do but wait and see if they emerged from the blighted place. He jumped and shivered as a wailing cry cut through the dusk, adding more wood to the fire. It sounded like a donkey, but he was certain that horrors prowled at night in this accursed place, and wished he was back in his tower.
The following morning, Tassin hung around while Sabre finished the cart and hauled it to the gun shop. When she offered to help him load the weapons, he shook his head, looking preoccupied, and she wondered what was wrong with him. The weapons were light, apparently, so only capacity limited the load, and he packed the cart to the brim. She poked through the drawers while he was busy, and found a pretty blue crystal object, which she pocketed as she followed him from the shop. The prospect of returning to Arlin excited her, and she pondered it with delight.
Sabre seemed to be in a hurry, and strode ahead with the cart. She trailed behind, took out the little blue crystal thing and fiddled with it. It had a three buttons, one green, one blue and one red, and two sliding knobs on the side, which she pushed up and down. The green button clicked when she pressed it, and a tiny blue light flashed on the top of the tube, above a slanted square piece with indentations in it, which looked like it was meant for a hand to grip. A panel on the side of it glowed, and she peered at the word in it. 'Armed'. Curious, she turned it so the short cylinder pointed upwards and examined the solid end, then pressed the red button.
A beam of white-hot light sizzled past her face, accompanied by a thunderous bang, and she jerked back with a yelp. A horrible crack came from above her. Sabre spun around, dropping into a crouch at the sound of a weapon's discharge. Horror dawned in his eyes as he looked up. Tassin followed his gaze. A ruined walkway plunged towards her with a shriek of tearing metal and tortured plastic.
The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone Page 25
