Maera rose, her face a white oval, red sparks jumping from her chest. “No. They can’t. Kal?”
“I can see them,” Kalaes’ voice grated, rough like sandpaper. “Get on the floor, Mae. How did they find us?”
“Damn Hera!” Maera’s voice shook as she dropped to her knees. “She betrayed us! She left us here with no means of transport—”
“She’s been helping us!” Kalaes said.
Maera stabbed a finger at him. “You just like her pretty face!”
“What? No!” Kalaes cursed. “I don’t like her any more than you do.”
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Elei moved toward the door, keeping low. Hopefully their pursuers didn’t know which apartment to target.
The boom of cannons blasted through the apartment. The windows exploded and glass rained inside. Maera squealed.
The Fleet didn’t need to know which apartment to target. They could take down the building. Or the whole town of Akmon. In his experience, the Gultur didn’t hold the human life to much value.
Kalaes grabbed his t-shirt from a chair. Elei inched out the door and down the hallway, pulling Maera by the hand. The passage flashed red, then blue, and it seemed to be breathing, expanding and contracting like a hallucination born of high fever.
An explosion rocked the building. Fire burst through the front door and they ducked as debris flew, hitting the walls.
“Back away. Find the fire escape!” Kalaes shouted.
Maera jerked on their hands. “There.”
They raced toward the narrow metal door at the other end of the dark passage. Kalaes kicked it open with a booted foot, and they stepped out into the daylight. Shading their eyes they looked up at the Fleet, then they hurtled into the narrow streets. The hum of the seleukids filled the air and shells exploded in the air-truck station. Fragments flew, slamming into everything, and they cowered, covering their heads.
Kalaes sprinted down a side street, his naked torso pale in the faint light, dragging them along by their hands. They turned the corner and Maera grunted and slowed down. Elei pulled at her hand, fear clawing at his insides. They ran behind the buildings, in narrow streets, but the rain of fire followed them. A house to their left exploded. Maera gasped and fell to her knees. Elei pulled her to her feet and hesitated, not knowing which way to go.
There were only so many places to hide in the small town, and the seleukids were methodically destroying them one by one. Rectangular drones burst from the seleukids and flew through the narrow alleys, the rat-a-tat of their machine guns echoing. People ran down the main street, screaming. Thick smoke curled over the rubble of bombed buildings. Dust hung thick in the air.
Kalaes coughed as he pulled them away from a crumbling block of apartments. An aircar rumbled down the street, packed with miners dressed in their dark uniforms and yellow helmets.
“Hey!” Kalaes let go of Maera’s hand and ran after them, waving his t-shirt in the air. “Take us with you!”
They were too far and didn’t notice him. The vehicle accelerated and vanished behind a corner. Another large aircar was already traveling full speed down the mountain slope from the mines.
They had to find a way to leave Akmon on their own. Beside the landing pad, the previous night he’d seen a small aircar under a camo cover. Elei took the lead.
“Where are you going?” Kalaes shouted, pulling on his t-shirt as he ran to join them.
Elei tugged on Maera’s hand. “Follow me.”
Burning debris rained down on them. Sirens wailed. A woman passed them by, sobbing into her hands.
“Hey!” Kalaes called after her, but she squealed and ran away. “Wait.”
Smoke blotted out the world. Drones flew overhead, their whine ringing in Elei’s ears. He stopped and rubbed his smarting eyes, trying to see. “Kalaes!”
Maera disengaged from his hold, leaving him alone in the cloud of dust. He groped about, coughing. An explosion boomed to his left. The ground shook. “Dammit, Kalaes!”
Then a hand caught his arm. “I found him,” Maera said and dragged Kalaes next to Elei. The older boy was limping.
Shit.
Elei wiped his watering eyes again. He had to get them out of here if it was the last thing he did. He had to find that aircar. As the smoke cleared somewhat, he made out the slope. “Come on.”
He placed Kalaes between him and Maera, to make sure he wouldn’t lag behind, and headed for the steep mountain slope where Hera had deposited them. The seleukid guns boomed again, shells slamming into the slope, exploding into a rain of sharp stones.
Elei halted. The landing pad was empty. The aircar was gone.
They weren’t going to make it. The certainty of the fact landed like a punch in his stomach. He’d get Kalaes and Maera killed.
His pulse roared, blotting out the explosions. There was no way they could scale this steep slope up or down, unless Hera came. They needed to find a protected place and wait for her. He licked dry lips. She’d come, wouldn’t she? He didn’t know why he believed it. Maybe it was that softness he’d seen in her gaze.
A narrow ledge led up to a mine. The path was deserted. If they were fast enough, maybe they could hide in the tunnels.
Hera, where are you?
Elei raced along the ledge, and the two others followed, slipping in mineral dust and loose earth. Huge chunks of rock jutted out of the slope further down. Good hiding places, if only they were in time. If only the enemy didn’t shoot them down before that.
The seleukids rose higher and more drones spilled out of their bellies. His heart sank. No chance.
But then he smelled the bitter fumes of dakron and silla coming from below their feet. A vehicle was there, hidden behind a rocky outcrop. He hesitated.
It could be Hera, or it could be the enemy. The seleukids boomed as they passed overhead, and explosions rocked the ground. He staggered and made up his mind. He changed direction, leaving the ledge, and climbed off the path. “This way. It’s an aircar.”
“Are you nuts? Maybe it’s theirs. We have to keep going up, we need to—”
“Come on.” He turned, grabbed Kalaes’ hand and dragged him down a few feet. Bullets flew around them, hitting the rocks and sending chips of stone flying. Fragments stung Elei’s face and shoulders.
Kalaes dug his heels in and squinted down. “What’re you talking about, fe? I don’t see or hear a pissing thing.”
“But I do.” Elei pulled Kalaes behind him. The smell was stronger now, and his gut twanged like a chord. Odd. It was as if something called him, hooked him and invited him over. “The vehicle’s hidden by the outcrop.”
The hum of the aircar finally reached his ears. The craft rose right before them, motionless and shimmering like a dragonfly. The door gaped open.
Through the exhaust fumes that filled the air, he smelled Hera’s scent of ripe fruit. Really odd. “Get ready to jump.”
“Come!” Hera’s voice sounded tinny, as if from a deep cave.
“Go!” Elei pushed Maera before him and toward the door. She jumped the small distance and grabbed the doorframe. Kalaes sprang after her, listing for a dreadful second, then going in. Elei sprinted just as the aircar wavered in position and Kalaes grabbed his arms and hauled him inside. They cowered as bullets rattled. Then they were out of there, rising above the mountain slope and diving toward the plain.
“I was coming to recover you,” she said while her long fingers danced on the console. “They got here first. I thought I was too late.”
Elei risked a look behind. The Fleet was a black cloud descending upon Akmon. In contrast to their old aircar, the seleukids slipped through space fast as thoughts. “Hera, please tell me you have a plan.”
“Oh, you can speak!” She arched an eyebrow at him, but kept her gaze ahead. Her face glowed like a mask of gold. “That is a change. And you are not vomiting all over the place. I’m positively impressed. Have you remembered Pelia’s words?”
His ears burned. “I asked
if you have a plan.”
“Yes, I do. My plan is to move up this slope undetected and hide you close by. We cannot move down to the plain while the Fleet is here.”
“That’s hardly a plan,” Elei muttered, disheartened.
“Listen, boy. Your usefulness is limited to Pelia’s words. As for my plans, they have been overturned too many times already. It’s getting increasingly difficult to think ahead, to think of places to hide you.” She shifted in her seat, shoulders tensing. “Actually, things are getting difficult in general.”
The roar of the Fleet drowned all sound now.
Maera screamed to be heard. “So what? We all die?”
The aircar rose and dipped among boulders, dove down into valleys where trucks moved, loaded with dakron and other minerals, seemingly oblivious to the destruction taking place on the mountain slope.
“I never said that, little girl, so stop your whining. I no more have access to their codes of passage, true. The plain highways are forbidden to us until the Resistance finds a way to contact me again. But I do have one last hiding place, a place nobody knows about, not even my team. If I manage to take you there in time, you’ll be safe for a while.”
Safe. The magical word. “What got us into trouble this time?”
Hera laughed, a harsh sound. “You’re always in trouble.”
“That’s not an answer,” Kalaes said quietly.
“Why should I answer to you?” She maneuvered the craft among rock formations, gripping the lever so hard her knuckles blanched.
“Please, Hera,” Elei said. “Just tell us.”
She threw him a sharp look. Her dark eyes glimmered. “I do not know. Monitoring their communications is not easy. They encrypted the message going out to all seleukids, but I cracked the code. They did not explain how they knew. My only hope was to reach you before them, but as you see I failed.”
Kalaes fell silent then, and so did Elei. The aircar rounded a crag and zoomed into a black opening in the rock. There it powered down and rested in darkness.
“A cave?” Kalaes’ voice rang too loud. Elei flinched.
The metallic structure holding up the tunnel looked manmade.
“Looks like an abandoned mine.” Elei unlocked the door and dropped outside into a crouch. He straightened. Rock and sand crunched underneath his boots, startlingly loud in the quiet, and he looked into the dark. With his possessed right eye, he saw roughly hewn walls, the track lines of a mine train, and in the depths of the tunnel a pile of rocks. The mine was blocked.
Kalaes stumbled and fell, cursing. “I can’t see a damn thing.”
Maera staggered out. Elei frowned and reached out to help her. He caught Maera’s flailing arms and Kalaes’ shoulder and pushed them against a wall.
“Elei? Damn, is that you? How come you’re not floundering like us, huh?” Then Kalaes exhaled loudly and it sounded like laughter. “You can see, can’t you, fe?”
Elei shrugged, then remembered they couldn’t see him. “Yes.”
“But I thought cronion was gone.”
So did I.
If cronion was gone, what made him see in the dark? He remembered the new color in his eye, the dark marks on his neck, the new smell of his skin, the burning sensations. Another intruder. Another parasite.
A shudder of unease went through his bones.
“Here,” came Hera’s voice. He saw her lean out of the aircar, a phosphorus torch in her hand. “You might need this. And this.”
She lowered out a thermos and a bread box. Elei went and caught them, and saw her teeth flash in a quick smile. Pretty, his mind said and he shushed it. Scary, he amended and stepped back.
Hera landed softly on her feet. She rubbed her arms and went to lean against the aircar’s front. Kalaes limped to Elei, grabbed the torch and flashed it around, illumining the long shaft. Crystals shimmered, embedded in the rock. The light fragmented into rainbows where it touched them.
“You’re bleeding.” Maera nudged Kalaes until his back met the wall and knelt down to check his calf. He pointed the torch down to give her light. Blood seeped through the khaki cloth.
Elei held himself very straight, hands curling into fists. “Is it bad?”
Maera took the torch, placed it on the floor so that it shone on Kalaes and tore off the leg of his pants. “Shrapnel from the shells. Don’t move, I’ve got it.” She wrapped her hand in the cloth, grabbed the piece and yanked it out in one smooth movement.
Kalaes cried out, in pain or surprise, or both. “Pissing hells, warn me next time, okay?”
Elei winced in sympathy.
With jerky motions, face pale, Kalaes ripped a strip from his t-shirt. “Here.” He handed it down to Maera who wrapped it around his calf and tied it off.
“Where did you get military training, little girl?” Hera asked in a flat voice.
Maera pushed herself to her feet and turned to face Hera with a dark frown. “I got no military training. Why are you saying that?”
Hera shrugged. “I saw you jump onto the aircar like a pro. And you recognized and pulled the shrapnel out without hesitation. It looks like you have seen and treated wounds like that before.”
“Well, I—”
“We’ve both seen wounds like this.” Kalaes reached out and pulled Maera to lean against his chest. “She’s worked in a hospital in Artemisia, right, Mae?”
She nodded, biting her lip. Kalaes’ hand smoothed over her curls.
“Why would she have seen shrapnel wounds in a hospital?” Hera asked.
“Machinery exploding, bombs going off in cars and buildings.” Kalaes flashed her a grim smile. “Terrorism, remember? Haven’t you read about it in the news?”
Hera shook her head. “I should get going.” She gave a mocking bow. “Nice to see you’re one happy family.”
“Right.” Kalaes cocked his head to the side. “Our five minutes with you are up?”
Hera huffed. “I must return before my absence causes suspicion.”
“Return where? How do we know you won’t betray us?”
She turned around, eyes flashing anger. “Return to work. I have helped you every single time, risking my life and…” She trailed off, staring wide-eyed at Elei, and pressed her hand to her stomach.
Was she sick, too? “What’s wrong?”
She jabbed her finger at him. “It’s you!”
He looked down at himself, wondering what it was she saw, uneasy. “What now?”
“You.” She licked her lips. “Your smell is different, peppery sweet. And your eye…” She strode to him and gripped his chin in her strong hand. “Your right eye has changed color.”
“It’s nothing.” He pried her hand off and turned his face away. “You see really well in the dark, don’t you?” Peculiar.
“And this… What’s this?” She twisted her hand in his polo-neck sweater and pulled the neckline down. Then she let go, hissing, hands clenching on nothingness. “These marks are new. It’s not telmion.”
“So it’s another parasite.” He tried not to dwell on the fact that it had somehow beaten cronion and telmion to submission. A parasite that strong couldn’t be good news for its host.
Kalaes limped over to them, the torch flashing in Hera’s face. “What are these marks you’re talking about?”
“Ask your little girlfriend, why not? She must know.”
“You leave her out of this game you’re playing!” Kalaes snarled.
“Why? She would know the signs of most diseases if she worked in a hospital. Do you know what this new parasite is, little girl?”
Maera didn’t answer. She folded her arms across her chest, scowling.
“What. Is. It.” Kalaes’ fists rose.
Hera grinned but it was strained, like a rictus of death. “I do not know.”
“But it scares you, why?” Kalaes whispered.
“Hera,” Elei said and his breath wheezed with his own fear. “You know what it is, don’t you?”
“I know it
has taken a seat in your eye and lets you see in the dark, and probably not only heat sources, am I right?” When Elei nodded, she shuddered. “It suppressed telmion, then overthrew cronion and took its place. Odds are it comes from cronion’s family, but in a variant I have never encountered before. What else does it do, Elei?”
The marks on his throat burned like lit coals. “I can smell and hear better.” He didn’t want to tell them about the burning sensations, about his obsession with the water and sweet food. He was scaring them enough already.
“That’s how you found Hera,” Maera whispered breathlessly. “You smelled the fumes of the aircar, didn’t you?”
Elei nodded.
“You haven’t answered my question, Hera,” Kalaes said. “Why were you scared?”
Elei saw again the look on her face as she’d turned, hand pressed to her stomach, and something clicked. “Because her own parasite responded, right, Hera? All the tiny microscopic parasites in your blood, in your organs, moving as one.” He pressed his hand against his twinging stomach and his mind whirred through a maze of thoughts. “Maybe this wasn’t even the first time you felt it, but you didn’t know what it was before. I know you didn’t see the marks on my neck. You couldn’t have. My sweater hides them. But you felt it, didn’t you? In your gut.”
She took a step back and covered her mouth with her hand.
“A strong parasite reacting to another strong one,” Elei said, “one that used to be an enemy to yours. I have a new strain of cronion, so you said.” Pieces fell into place with frightening clangs. His lungs felt crushed. The picture emerging was not possible, not true.
But then he thought of the unusual colors her body pulsed. Her attractive scent. The marks on her fingers. The reason she knew so much about Regina and about the Gulturs’ codes and movements.
Elei didn’t know much about them, had never met one face to face. But somehow, at this moment, he knew he was looking at one of them. “You’re a Gultur.”
Chapter 18
Hera struggled with shock, confusion and anger, all twisting in knots inside her. Why had she made the mistake and come back for them? They did not trust her before, and would never trust her now. The reputation of the Gultur — well deserved at that — was sufficient to brand her as the enemy.
Rex Rising (Elei's Chronicles) Page 14
