A black shape fell from the roof at the back of the structure. It landed with a single thud on the boat and seemed to coalesce into the form of a woman. More like a woman’s silhouette. The black of her fatigues was absolute, save the narrow strip of face visible between forehead and mouth. The eyes were dark, narrow slits, just like Caswell’s. Melni grasped the oversize trigger with her fist and pulled back. The gun’s eight barrels erupted with flame and gray smoke. The sound hit like a physical blow and Melni stumbled back under the violence of it. The walls shook. Birds took flight from trees all along the river.
The top half of the old boat disintegrated in a cloud of shredded wood as the thorny balled projectiles hissed through the air.
She’d wanted a cloud of blood and black fabric, though. The Hollow Woman had dodged, leaping off to the right, bouncing once on the wooden decking beside the watercraft and then leaping in a high forward flip toward Melni. Melni raised the gun as fast as her numbed hands would allow but the heavy gun had not been designed to take on fast-moving targets. It had been designed to convert a cone-shaped portion of an angry mob into shreds of meat and bone. Melni fired anyway and marveled at the circular portion of ceiling that vanished in a haze of splinters. Then the black shape was on her. Melni dropped the heavy weapon, leaning as she did so to dislodge the shoulder strap. At the same time she fumbled for her pistol. The Hollow slammed into her left shoulder, one palm striking Melni’s chin. She bit involuntarily, a searing pain as teeth punctured tongue, then the taste of copper as blood filled her mouth. Melni fell backward, spinning from the impact, her hands unable to grasp the pistol. She tried to turn the fall into some kind of sweeping kick but her foot tangled with the wall beside her.
Clumsy. Utterly outmatched.
The Hollow managed to hit the ground with one foot and vaulted up, her other foot catching the back wall and pushing her into a tight twirling flip to avoid Melni’s leg sweep that never came. The woman landed with a dancer’s grace and swung one arm out of a fold in her outfit. Melni glimpsed something metallic there. A pistol. She had only time to grimace at the bullet to come.
The Hollow Woman’s head snapped sideways. There was a wet slap from the back wall as her brains splattered against the wood.
Melni glanced left and saw a blur resembling Caswell disappear around the back wall of the boathouse. She struggled to her feet and ran to where he’d been. When she glanced around the edge he was gone. Instead, she saw a black shape in the trees thirty feet distant, just up from the riverbank. She lurched back and ducked just as the sniper’s rifle cracked. A chunk of wood above Melni’s head exploded inward, raining bits onto the boat and the far side of the slip. Melni crawled back on her hands as two more rounds tore through the wall. Fired for effect. Fired to keep her pinned there. She whirled and ran back inside at a crouch, finding and hefting the riot gun with both hands as she went. In the next room she bounded past the hatch in the floor and kept running toward the door at the front of the building. One earsplitting boom from the weapon saw the barrier annihilated in a cloud of smoke and shrapnel. Someone cried out behind that mess.
Melni leapt, bringing her knees up and elbows in as she crashed through the remnants of the front door. She landed knees first on a figure dressed in black, one leg a mangled length of blood and bone. Too close to shoot, Melni swung the heavy gun instead. The thick eight-barrel cylinder met skull with a dull, ringing thud. The surprised Hollow let out an inhuman sigh and slumped sideways into a motionless heap.
Two down. Only the sniper remained, unless more of the killers lurked out there. Where was Caswell? She strained her ears but that was useless. They rang from the close-quarters use of the riot cannon and pounded with the rapid thud of a battle-fueled pulse. She needed to move. Be unpredictable. Act, she realized, on pure instinct. Maybe there was some merit to Caswell’s style after all.
She forced herself to her feet and lumbered away from the smashed door of the building, up the sloped path diagonally until she reached the dense grass near the burial mounds. Something, some survival instinct, made her dive at the same moment a shot hissed through the air where her head had been. The thunderous crack of the weapon followed, echoing off the surrounding trees.
Another bullet whipped through the tall grass a split second later, inches above her head. She forced herself lower, dirt in her mouth and nose, and crawled on her belly for a tree a few feet away.
“Stay down!” a voice shouted. Caswell’s. He sounded distant, but then everything did.
Something blotted the Sun above her for a second. Footsteps nearby. Her companion rushed past, toward the sniper. Melni heard the crack of gunfire—once, twice. Unable to stop herself she came to one knee, her eyes just level with the wispy fringe of the tall weeds. Caswell was twenty feet away moving toward the shooter at a dead sprint. He weaved, using the thick tree trunks as natural cover. Suddenly he dove, rolled, and came up running at a new angle even as the rolling thunder of another sniper round boomed through the trees. He dodged with uncanny, almost precognizant speed a heartbeat before each whip crack from the sniper’s rifle.
After three such uncanny escapes the sniper changed tactics. Melni saw the black-clad figure vanish into the bushes when Caswell was still fifty feet off. He did not slow. Running at a low crouch he slipped through the branches and shifting grasses like a yacht through calm waters, then he, too, was gone, out of sight, over the next rise along the river. Gunfire echoed off the hills.
Help him! a voice shouted in her head. Her own voice. She’d been sitting there, clutching the heavy riot gun like some kind of talisman. Melni came to her feet and considered her options. Follow Caswell? Find a more appropriate weapon within the ship? No, secure the bikes. Be ready to flee—
Quit blixxing around and act!
She never heard the person approach. She was utterly alone, and then not alone. The cool metal of a pistol pressed against her neck just behind the ear. Then a black-gloved hand on her collar, squeezing.
“Say nothing,” a woman said.
Melni had heard that voice before, in the archive.
“Drop the cannon and put your hands behind your back. Fingers entwined. Yes, that is good. To your knees, traitor. Lean forward until your face is between your legs.”
“Traitor?”
The force of the hand on Melni’s neck compelled her to follow commands. To fight back now would mean instant death. She’d wait for Caswell. Strike when the Hollow Woman was distracted.
Footsteps from up the trail. Melni felt the hand ease on her neck, inviting her to look. She did so. He emerged from the trees along the trail, a hundred feet up from where he’d sprinted off after the sniper. Caswell walked with his hands clasped behind his head, a Hollow behind him. Then another.
She watched in stunned horror. Six of the black-outfitted soldiers were fanned in a rough half circle behind him, plus a seventh on his heels, some unseen weapon clearly pressed at the small of the Earthman’s back. Melni’s breath caught in her throat at the sight. In all Gartien there were said to be only twelve Hollow. The South had sent the entirety of that elite force after her. Her and the stranger.
For his part Caswell did not appear to be injured. He looked calm, in fact. Disturbingly so. One of the Hollow, Melni noted, walked with a limp. Another’s arm dangled uselessly at his or her side.
“Let her go,” Caswell called out. “I forced her to bring me here. She’s innocent.”
“Your concern is noted, your request denied,” the one holding Melni said in her icy voice. “Now, why did you go through so much trouble to come to this place, I wonder?”
“We are on our way to Combra,” Melni said without thinking. “We just stopped for shelter.”
The handle of the gun cracked against the side of her skull. Stars swam before Melni’s eyes, then the tears came in a single, stinging wave. A trickle of warm blood ran down behind her ear and dripped onto her pant leg. She teetered but did not pass out. The blow had been expertly placed and
just hard enough not to send her unconscious. “Remain silent, traitor. Your time to answer questions will come.” She pressed harder on Melni’s neck until Melni could feel her knees against the bottom of her chin and smell the dirt inches from her nose. “Now, stranger. Answer me.”
“Absolutely not,” Caswell said.
A few seconds of silence followed before the Hollow spoke. “Your lack of cooperation is unfortunate.”
“Good,” he replied.
Melni found herself smiling.
The Hollow leader shifted her weight. “They were in the boathouse?” she asked. One of her team evidently replied with a positive gesture—Melni could see nothing and heard nothing. “Search the place,” the leader said.
Melni counted four of them darting off down the trail toward the river. That left her captor, plus three others guarding Caswell. An even split of their number, and as good as the odds were likely to get. She wondered if Caswell would agree, and what he planned to do. Melni tried to remember if there had been a rock or stick anywhere within reach. Something she could wield, however feeble. Then she registered the weight of the slender pistol she had stuffed in her pocket. Bent over like this she’d never get it out in time, but if—
“Hear me!” Caswell suddenly said. His voice was unnaturally loud and he went on with only the slightest hesitation. “Within that structure two Northern agents wait ready to kill anyone who enters. They’re heavily armed—”
His words all ran together as if he had to say them all in a single breath. Why? Melni groped for some hidden meaning and found nothing obvious.
“—heavily armed and in a foul mood. I suggest you enter from both sides at once if you want to live. Also, the water is quite cold, so be ready for that.”
“Quiet,” the leader snapped.
“You really should heed my warnings!” Caswell was shouting now, on the cusp of hysterics.
What the blix is he up to? Melni tried to rock back on her feet. She still had a pistol. She needed easier access to the pocket she’d thrust it in. But the Hollow only pushed on her neck harder.
“Be still, traitor!” she growled. Through it all Caswell had kept talking, louder and louder. “Silence! I mean it!” the leader shouted at him.
“Melni, down!” Caswell roared.
She was already down. She pitched forward anyway. The shift in her posture, her sudden lack of resistance to the pressure on her neck, allowed her to dive face-first into the dirt and flatten herself. The leader of the Hollow squad stumbled, one knee driving hard into Melni’s back. She lost her grip on Melni’s neck.
There came a hiss that grew from the edge of inaudibility to an ear-splitting roar in less than a second. Then the world shattered.
Even with her lying flat on the edge of the trail’s incline down to the boathouse, the explosion slammed Melni sideways into an awkward roll. Debris, dirt, and a wall of blistering hot air hit her all at once. The roar of the blast forced her sense of hearing into some kind of self-preservation dormancy. Vaguely, as if miles away, Melni heard the brief scream from the lips of the Hollow Woman followed by a muffled distant noise of what Melni could only think of as meat thrown against a brick wall. She pressed herself into the dirt and screamed as the shrapnel-laden inferno rolled over her and away.
How much time had passed, Melni couldn’t be sure. Intense heat licked at her back. Her clothing, on fire. She rolled in the dirt, extinguishing the flames, and glanced toward the river.
The boathouse was nothing more than a blackened crater. Debris still rained down from the sky in fiery chunks that smacked into the ground and splashed into the river. Water rushed in to fill the sudden hole in the ground where the structure had been. Of the vessels—Alia’s or the Warden’s below it—nothing remained. The bomb must have been massive.
Gathering her senses, ears ringing, Melni completed her roll and looked to where Caswell had stood, just on the other side of the rise. Amid smoke and flame she saw him, lying prone like her. Around him were the splayed bodies of the Hollow. Half bodies, in truth. The legs and pelvises, sheltered by the crest of the trail, were largely undamaged. Waist up, however, all that remained of each was a horrific mess of shredded muscle, bone, black fabric, and various unrecognizable chunks of human innards. The four who had gone to search the boathouse had been completely obliterated.
Caswell was shouting something at her. He sounded a mile away and underwater. Melni crawled toward him, happy to find that her arms and legs still worked. She ignored the bits of fire starting to catch within the clumps of tall grass, and the sting of a dozen lacerations along her left side and back. “Are you all right?” he shouted as she reached him.
Despite her proximity she still had to read his lips. A bright, all-consuming ringing filled her head. Melni managed a nod and took his outstretched hand. Caswell kept glancing up as he began to pull her away from the boathouse. His jog turned into an urgent sprint, tugging her along. The cuts and scrapes across half her body forced her into a lurching, stumbling fall that barely served to keep up. Suddenly Caswell twisted, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her bodily between two mounds of dirt. The two graves. Another explosion behind them. The air seemed to rip apart. Melni tasted the soil and felt the flash of warmth and then Caswell was on top of her, shielding her.
She barely had time to suck in a breath and then he was up and dragging her to her feet. “Run!” he shouted, the muffled sound almost inaudible. Melni tried to, but half her body now felt as if aflame. Maybe it was. She limped and plodded through tall grass, away from the trail, the ruin of the boathouse, and the cottage. Caswell seemed to be pushing her toward a cleft in the valley wall so she forced her mind to focus on that. Bits of dirt and other unrecognizable debris rained out of the sky. Another explosion, this time to her right, shook the ground beneath her feet. The cottage vanished in a ball of fire and smoke.
Caswell pushed her on, a strong hand at the center of her back guiding her. She stumbled and screamed in pain. His arm slipped under hers and in one motion he lifted her and swung her up over his shoulders. Caswell carried her like that for fifty feet and then dove, the pair of them slamming into a natural earthen pocket carved from the valley wall. She lay there, arms over her head, body pressed against Caswell’s, as six more bombs demolished the entire length of the path. The home, the graves, the boathouse, all reduced to craters. Nothing remained but charred dirt and a choking cloud of smoke. It filled the air, stung Melni’s eyes and nostrils. Her mouth tasted of ash and blood. Each breath came with racking coughs.
She lay there for a long time, wrapped in Caswell’s arms, until the dust cleared. Ten minutes passed, maybe more. “We need to get away from here,” she said.
Caswell didn’t reply. In fact he hadn’t moved in many minutes. Suddenly his body felt like an unbearable weight upon her.
Filled with sudden dread, Melni pressed her hand to his right breast.
SHE FELT NO PULSE. Despair began to crash upon her like a wave, until a tiny voice inside her said, This happened before! Yes, on the boat as they fled Portstav. She’d felt no pulse then, and yet he lived. Then she remembered what the doctor in Riverswidth had said, how all his organs were flipped from the normal layout, as if reflected in a mirror. She pressed the other side of his chest. His skin thudded rhythmically against her palm. Quite strong, in fact.
Sighing with relief, ignoring the hundred aches her body had on offer, Melni slid out from beneath the unconscious man and rolled him onto his back. “Caswell? Caswell?” she asked, slapping his cheek gently. Her own voice sounded distant and muted to her tortured ears.
He did not react. Melni forced herself to stand and surveyed the devastation all around them. Even the vaunted Hollow, it seemed, were no match for surgical bombing from Valix’s airships. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from Garta’s glare and surveyed the sky. High above, like bloated birds circling on some impossibly strong updraft, three Combran airships traced circles against the darkening ceiling beyond.
His augmented senses had saved them. He’d heard the engines, the whistle of that first bomb, before anyone else. There’d been no time to do anything other than dive to the ground, but that had been enough.
Fires burned all around, casting plumes of gray smoke high into the air, a light breeze drawing the haze out over the river to the north.
Melni took a last glance at the placid face of Caswell and slid the pistol from her pocket. She left him there, in the cleft along the valley wall, and crept south toward the smoking ruin of the cottage. The Hollow had come from that direction. Masters of stealth they might be, but their footprints had told the story. They would have vehicles nearby. Supplies. And though they had probably left someone behind to guard such things, maybe whoever it was had rushed to the riverbank after that first bomb, to help, and been annihilated by the second fusillade.
Pistol held before her, the brand of “traitor” still echoing in her ears, Melni entered the smoke. It filled the air like a morning Combran fog, only black, and stung the eyes to the point that tears streamed down her cheeks. She saw nothing but shadowy trees and the orange glow of a hundred small fires. Then the husk of what had been the cottage, now a ruin in a blackened crater, loomed out of the haze. Melni skirted it and kept on. The ground began to slope, then a cliff wall emerged from the haze.
Black rappelling ropes with knotted segments trailed down from high above. Melni took one last glance back toward the cleft where Caswell lay. She drew a mental line from cottage to a lone greencloud tree, then his body a ways beyond that. Then she turned and started to climb, up and out of the smoke, away from the death.
Zero World Page 31
