by Tim O'Rourke
Neanna caught them staring at her and said, “It might have looked like a machine, but it was a living thing. Couldn’t you hear its screams? It was in pain.”
There was a moment’s silence as Faraday pulled the waxy-looking flesh back over his hand and arm. Then without a hint of emotion in his synthesized voice, he said, “We’d better get going then.”
With the Seek-Wasp buzzing excitedly above their heads, Zach turned to Faraday and said, “And that’s why I can’t say you are like a human. Humans have feelings.”
Without saying another word, Zach took the reins of one of the Butter-Flyers and climbed on. Neanna stood, and brushing the ash from her cloak, she climbed on board behind him. Faraday said nothing, but stood staring at Zach. Then, slowly he turned and went to the last of the Butter-Flyer machines. Yelping like a scared pup, William leapt onto the butterfly – sandwiched between Bom and Faraday. With her arms wrapped around Zach’s waist, she peered over his shoulder and watched as he gently pulled back on the ropes that were attached to the Butter-Flyer’s head. They slowly rose into the air, the creature’s wings beating delicately on either side of them as they gained momentum and soared towards the clouds.
As Zach and his friends raced into the evening sky behind the Seek-Wasp, Zach noticed that the sky had become overcast with a bank of drab-looking cloud. Zach looked at them. He couldn’t be sure of it and he doubted that it could be possible, but the clouds were changing colour. They weren’t reflecting the colour of the dying sun, but they were turning grey, dark grey, charcoal, and then black. Then to his amazement, the clouds suddenly began to separate, as if falling apart into smaller chunks. These chunks then broke up into smaller pieces, then into just wispy black fragments.
Neanna tapped Zach on the shoulder and shouted into his ear, “Look! Look at the clouds!”
“What’s happening?” Zach yelled as he drew his Butter-Flyer alongside Faraday’s.
“Arthropods,” Faraday said, banking his Butter-Flyer quickly to the right. William howled in fear, throwing his long arms around Faraday.
“Arthur who?” Bom shouted.
“Arthropods,” Faraday said again. Then as if to clarify what it was he meant, he added, “Giant flying spiders.”
“Ah you’ve got to be kidding me!” Zach shouted. But as he looked ahead, he knew Faraday was telling the truth. The clouds he thought he had seen were in fact finely woven webs. Spread out across the sky, each of them was filled with thousands of silky-looking eggs which were waiting to hatch. As they drew nearer, Zach noticed each piece, which had broken away, was in fact a giant spider.
These spidery-looking creatures with webbed-shaped wings swarmed around in the air as if forming some aerial formation, then to everyone’s horror, they came racing towards them. And as they raced across the evening sky, they made hideous squawking sounds that pierced the air. There were hundreds of them and as they swarmed nearer and nearer, Zach could see that their bodies were black, hairy, and bloated. Although they closely resembled giant tarantulas, they only had six black bony legs and a set of wings that were transparent and covered in bristly-looking hair. But this wasn’t what made Zach and his friends’
skin crawl; it was the sight of the dead peacekeepers, who sat astride each of the flying spiders. Just like the dead peacekeepers who had ridden the tiger-bikes, their faces were covered with those creepy-looking respirators.
The flying spiders were nearly upon Zach and his friends as they released a volley of darts from black coloured fangs.
“Don’t get shot by one of those darts!” Faraday shouted, as he screamed past on his Butter-Flyer.
“Why?” Bom roared back.
“Because it would be very bad.”
“How bad?” William howled.
“Those darts are covered in a deadly venom,” Faraday shouted over his shoulder.
“That’s bad!” Bom grunted, as he now gripped hold of William.
Without any warning, Neanna placed one of her hands over Zach’s and yanked violently on the reins of the Butter-Flyer. The creature rolled to the left and sharply lost altitude. Zach felt his stomach leap into his throat and he fought desperately not to be sick. Neanna banked the Butter-Flyer round then threw her arms tightly about Zach’s waist again.
“What are you playing at?” Zach roared back at her, once again in control of the machine.
“You had two of those spiders coming up fast!” Neanna shouted in his ear, her cloak flapping about her shoulders.
Zach glanced to his right and saw more of the flying spiders racing towards them. But before he had a chance to react, Neanna had gripped his hands again and was sending the Butter-Flyer racing downwards.
“I have everything under control!” Zach shouted back at her. “You don’t have to keep taking hold of my hands. I don’t like it!”
“That’s not what I heard you tell Faraday,” she whispered in Zach’s ear.
“Oh, my god, you were listening!” Zach cried, his cheeks flushing scarlet. “That was a private conversation!”
“Not that private,” she smiled to herself, and yanked on his hands again, pulling the reins upwards. “I was lying on the sofa.”
“You weren’t meant to have heard how I feel about you,” Zach shouted over the sound of the volley of darts that whizzed just past them.
“Get a life, Zachary Black!” she said, her cheek pressed against his, as she reached over him and pulled at the reins. “You were hoping I would overhear you.”
“And why would I have wanted that?” he snapped, snatching hold of one of his crossbows and firing it at an approaching dead peacekeeper.
“Because you didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face,” she whispered in his ear. Then, kissing him softly on the cheek, she said, “Swap places with me. You can’t steer and shoot at the same time.”
Zach glanced sideways at her, the touch of her lips still making his cheek tingle. He looked into her brilliant blue eyes and Neanna stared back. He wanted to say something – anything – but he didn’t know what.
“Stop staring at me and shoot!” Neanna shouted, pulling him from his trance.
“Oh, yeah – sure,” Zach mumbled as Neanna brushed past him, taking the reins. With lightning speed, he pulled his other crossbow free and unleashed wave after wave of stakes at the approaching flying spiders.
To their right, Zach and Neanna heard Faraday shout, “Get down! Get down!”
William and Bom both crouched low on the Butter-Flyer as a volley of poisonous darts were spat from the spider-ship’s fangs and tore through the sky just inches above their heads. Neanna reared up on the reins and the butterfly machine climbed sharply upwards as several of the spiders zoomed beneath them and smashed into each other head-on. Zach glanced back to see them spin out of control as they dropped through the sky towards the ground.
Faraday spun his Butter-Flyer around and shouted, “There are too many of them!”
“Can’t you conjure up your doorway or something?” Neanna squealed over her shoulder at Zach.
“I don’t know how to,” he shouted.
“Some peacekeeper!” Bom roared.
“Even if I could, God only knows what you would change into on the other side!” Zach scowled at him.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth, then Neanna was corkscrewing their butterfly through the air in a desperate attempt to avoid another onslaught of darts that raced towards them. Zach screwed up his eyes and took aim as more spider-ships approached. Faraday raced his butterfly machine towards the ground with such speed, that Bom’s feet lifted into the air. William howled in terror as Bom held onto him.
“We’re gonna die!” Bom roared.
Hearing this, Faraday reached round and snatched the catapult from William’s pocket. In an instant he had whirled William around, forced the catapult into his claws, and said, “Stop your howling and fight, or you will most certainly die.”
Numbly, William took hold of the catapult and nodded, his long, brown dreadlocks flowi
ng back from his face. Looking over the side of the Butter-Flyer, his eyes burning bright, he spotted several of the spider-ships and took aim. He released the inferno berry and it whizzed through the air, imbedding itself into the bloated belly of one of the spiders. The sound of its body exploding filled the sky like a rumble of thunder. Its white, milky-looking innards erupted into the night, throwing the dead peacekeeper clear. Hungry green flames tore through the darkness like lighting, as the aftershock of the explosion sliced several of the spider-ships and the dead peacekeepers into pieces.
Zach spun around on the Butter-Flyer, and leaning over Neanna’s shoulder, he released a torrent of stakes into an approaching spider-ship. The spider shrieked as if in agony and then dropped through the air. The dead peacekeeper riding the ship hurriedly jumped up. Taking aim again, Zach fired into the respirator covering its face. The mask came free, revealing the pale face of the dead peacekeeper. It clawed at the air as if unable to breathe, its wide, open mouth flapping widely. Another of the flying spiders zoomed in close to Zach and Neanna, its web-like wings beating furiously.
“We’re outnumbered!” Zach shouted at Faraday as he went soaring past William, who was leaning against Bom as he released another inferno berry from his catapult.
Within moments, the night sky was shaking and glowing bright green, as a mass of the spider-ships erupted into flames. Another of the spiders raced towards Faraday’s Butter-Flyer. It released a wave of darts. Faraday banked the Butter-Flyer to the right as the darts roared past.
“Take the reins,” Faraday shouted back at Bom.
“Why, where are you going?” Bom roared, fear brimming in his eyes. “You’re not leaving us, are you?”
“Just take them,” Faraday insisted, shoving the reins into Bom’s hands.
Faraday ran the length of the Butter-Flyer. He moved with such speed that he became almost a blur. As he reached the end of the machine, he ripped the skin from his hands and arms and extended them on either side of his body as he leapt into the air. Faraday’s arms spun like a set of helicopter rotary blades as he twisted through the sky. He slashed at the air in several quick and precise movements, slicing through the legs of the approaching spider-ships.
The spiders spat and hissed in anger as their legs floated harmlessly away. But the loss of the creatures’ legs caused them to fall into an uncontrollable spin. The riders fought to stay on board, but as the spiders spun faster and faster out of control, the dead peacekeepers fell away. One of the descending creatures smashed into an unsuspecting spider-ship, and on contact, the creature exploded like a water bomb – in a shower of pussy, white liquid.
Neanna brought the Butter-Flyer around in a tight arc and Zach frantically searched the sky for Faraday. But he couldn’t see him.
“We’ve lost Faraday!” Zach shouted in Neanna’s ear.
“No we haven’t, he’s down there!” William howled as Bom raced his Butter-Flyer past Zach and Neanna.
Zach looked in the direction William was pointing and he could see Faraday standing astride one of the spider-ships as his arms sliced and whooshed through the air. Zach could only begin to imagine how he had dispatched the spider’s rider.
Faraday swooped around on top of the flying spider as he cut and thrust his way through any of the creatures that dared to fly near him. His arms moved with lightning speed, and as he hacked and jabbed away, Zach and his friends didn’t see the slightest glimmer of emotion on Faraday’s face.
William’s attention was drawn away by the sound of screeching from above. He glanced up to see one of the spider-ships right on top of him and Bom. It was so close, William could see the long black hairs which hung from its legs snagging in the wind. Before William had had the chance to take aim with his catapult, two of the spider’s legs had curled around his waist and snatched him up into the air. William yelped and kicked out wildly with his legs, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t work himself free from the creature’s grasp.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Anna Black sat behind Tanner on the rafter horse. Nail had given up his horse and was now riding with Wavia. Tanner led and the others followed. They had left the camp at sunrise, and what was left over from the remains of the Dammed Bandits was dragged into the sea by the last of the Crabsters.
As the rafter horse galloped across the desert, Anna clung onto Tanner. She had never ridden a horse before, let alone one that had six bony legs and a head that snaked back and forth on the end of a serpent-like neck. Tanner had explained that if her brother, Zach, was to reach the box, he would have to cross a place called the Outer-Rim. So that’s where they were heading. But that wasn’t all that Tanner explained and her head ached with all the information he had given her.
Tanner had explained to Anna about the reflections and the importance of hers. As she had sat before the fire and had tried to get her head around the whole idea of being somehow related to the Queen of the new world she found herself in, Tanner filled her head with more. He told her about the box and how it contained the Heart of Endra. He explained how Endra and Earth were both reflections of each other, and what happened in one, something similar happened in the other. She then understood the importance of saving Endra from the sorcerer, Throat, who Tanner had told her about.
Anna was informed by Wavia how they were the last of the peacekeepers, the others all murdered by Throat and his armies of Demonic Guardians. Baran explained that some of the peacekeepers were rumoured to have been risen from the dead by Throat to patrol the Outer-Rim, and protect the volcano which lay on the other side of it. But with a shrug of his shoulders, Nail passed it off as rumours – scary stories told to prevent anyone venturing too close to the Outer-Rim.
Tanner told her how the box had first been opened by a werewolf who travelled with her brother and this is what had brought Throat and his grotesque sister out of hell, or wherever it was that they had come from. He told Anna about the Slath and how they had been trapped permanently between life and death. They were neither alive nor dead. Zombies, some called them. Only one of their race had survived, and her name was Neanna Cera and she travelled with Anna’s brother.
Anna felt like her head was going to explode as her brain absorbed everything that Tanner and the other peacekeepers had told her. But as she raced across the desert, her arms wrapped around Tanner’s waist, she realised that he hadn’t explained who he was. Where had he come from? Who was the woman Meadda that he called out to in his sleep? And how did he seem to know so much about Anna and her brother?
Anna hoped that if they camped again before reaching the place Tanner called the Outer-Rim, she would be able to ask him some of the questions she had. Tanner made a ‘clucking’ noise in the back of his throat and raced the rafter horse across the desert. It was warm with the sun directly above them, spinning its bright rays outwards and drying up everything they touched. Anna glanced back over her shoulder to take another quick peek at Nail, when she saw a large black shadow racing just above the desert floor. She screwed up her eyes against the glare of the sun, then realised it wasn’t a shadow at all, but a huge black crow. If she had been anywhere else, Anna would have needed to take a second look just to make sure she wasn’t imagining the enormous crow racing towards her and the peacekeepers. Before she could scream or shout to alert the others, the crow swooped forward and snatched one of the peacekeepers from their rafter horse with its twisted black talons. Squawking so loud that Anna threw her hands over her ears, she looked up to see the crow rip the peacekeeper in two.
The crow tossed the upper torso of the peacekeeper into the air. Screaming, Anna watched as a thick, ropey stream of entrails sprayed from what was left of the peacekeeper. Then bobbing its head forward and opening its huge beak, the crow snatched the remains of the peacekeeper out of the air and swallowed him. Anna’s screams were the first indication that any of the remaining peacekeepers had that they were under attack. Tanner pulled back on the rafter horse’s mane and turned it around. With a cr
ossbow in his fist, he raced back towards the others. He fired a volley of stakes up at the crow, who circled just out of reach.
Before the remains of their friend had even spattered into the sand, the remaining peacekeepers had all drawn their crossbows. Corkscrewing out of the sky, the crow attacked again, its hideous squawking sending the rafter horses into a blind panic. Tanner managed to keep control of his horse, Anna holding on so tightly that her fingernails dug into his back. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Baran and another of the peacekeepers and been thrown clear. Nail and Wavia fought to keep their horse under control. Then the crow was racing just feet above the flat desert floor as it chased one of the fallen peacekeepers down. So close to the ground, Tanner saw the two figures astride the giant crow’s back.
“Fandel and his witch!” Tanner roared, and fired off another wave of stakes from his crossbow. They whizzed harmlessly over their heads.
With its wings spread open, and blowing up a sheet of dust in its wake, the crow hovered over the retreating peacekeeper. Then with one peck of his hooked, black beak, it pulled the peacekeeper’s head from its shoulders. The crow threw its head back and swallowed the peacekeeper’s head in one quick gulp. It was so quick, that the peacekeeper’s body continued to run forward across the desert, thick jets of blood squirting from its neck. Anna watched from between her fingers as what was left of the peacekeeper stumbled forward a few more steps, then collapsed headless into the dust.
The crow turned its attention on Baran as he staggered backwards, firing wildly up at its riders. Sweat ran down his face and onto his whiskered chin as he took aim. But the crow was too fast and slick, as it just batted the stakes away with its razor-sharp talons. Throwing his hands up in front of his face and screaming, the crow plucked Baran up into the air. Kicking out with his legs, he knew what was going to happen next. As the crow soared over Anna and Tanner’s heads, Baran stared down at them.
With a look of acceptance on his face, he yelled, “Shoot me, Tanner! Don’t let this bird kill me.”
