Galefire III : Tether War

by Kenny Soward

  Something slapped against the tent flap. It flew back, thrown by someone frantic to get through. The impression of two tiny hands and a head pressed against it. At first, Torri thought it might be Tavia, but then the flap flew aside, and little Lida Kirby rushed in. She gave one terrified glance at the tall blonde woman and dashed to the side, running into the back of one of the operatives sitting at their workstation.

  The little girl’s eyes found Torri and she dove forward, landing on her knees at Torri’s feet.

  Torri caught her arms to keep the girl from falling too hard. She held her up and looked into a dirty face streaked with tears. That’s when she noticed the girl’s jeans were ripped, her shirt torn in several places. Bleeding too, where she’d run like a frantic monkey through briers, no doubt.

  “What is it, Lida? Why you such a mess?”

  “They’re comin’, Torri.”

  Torri gave the girl a little shake. “What the heck are you talkin’ about?”

  “Some men. Some things came to the hollers last night. Some monsters, I think.” Face a mask of fear, Lida shivered. Poor thing must’ve busted her ass to get here, and the overexertion was catching up to her now.

  Torri couldn’t let the girl collapse until she found out what was going on.

  “Lida, now get it together. Just start slow.”

  Lida nodded and took a deep breath, calming herself as Kristanna and several operatives looked on. “Last night, some of the Crone and Kirby cousins, all led by Tyler Banks, came tearing up to our place. They had their guns with them. Told us something was out there killing hill folks, holler by holler. Then Pa grabbed his gun and told me to run as fast as I could to warn you. Said I should tell you he was gonna get some more men and come defend your hill. He said that they’d meet you here.”

  The little girl gave one last shiver and collapsed into sobs.

  A big arm pushed through the flap and there stood Lonnie’s friend Crash with a couple other commandos. His eyes took in the scene. The little girl collapsed in Torri’s arms. The monitor. He swallowed, nodded. “I heard what the little girl said. We been expecting this. We’ll form up. You stay and keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”

  “It’s her,” Torri said, voice filled with bitter worry. “Azarah. It’s her monsters. You cain’t win this without me fighting with you.”

  “We’ll do just fine. Stay.”

  Torri watched the big man disappear, the tent flap fluttering to a close behind him. She wanted to follow him right out the door, feeling like she was missing something big. Something dreadful.

  The tent went silent. All eyes were on her. She exchanged a look with Kristanna, who’d forgotten about the monitor and was fixing Torri with her full attention.

  “Hey, look, I can’t imagine how you feel right now, but you can trust us. Those commandos are tough. So is Crash and Ingrid. They’re good. They can handle it. No one is getting up this hill.”

  Torri nodded, resigned, and collapsed in her chair.

  Chapter 25

  The ECC assault team, the remaining eleven Holy Avengers and two fade rippers, pushed up the back of the long, craggy rock formation on a sea of sand. They remained in a loose formation to avoid being taken down in groups should they be attacked again.

  Lonnie and Elsa had moved up to the middle of the pack after their little fracas with the horned men below. Lonnie was good with that. Seemed the smartest place to have them when the sheer weight of ammunition wouldn’t suffice.

  Jeff, despite his normally apathetic attitude, performed like a consummate pro when it came to administering care. He calmly quizzed the soldier Lonnie had saved, a guy named Steve Jacobs, to see whether the guy had any broken bones or sprains. He administered a quick injection through the man’s suit, some kind of anti-inflammatory, Lonnie overheard.

  Bess had been using her godsight, admitting privately to Lonnie (after muting her mic) that it was a little sketchy on this side of the gate. Not so much mixed or overloaded signals, but more like intermittent spurts of strength. She could feel it come and go, and that’s why she’d recognized the scarab creature threat too late.

  Things were completely opposite for him and Elsa.

  Hell’s atmosphere had filled him with pure, raw power. Hard to believe he’d forgotten what it was like, but as a dignitary in one of Hell’s high families, he’d never truly tested himself.

  And now his body and mind were starved for it, feeding off his world’s seemingly endless energy. He felt the violence of it in his bones, resonating through every cell in his body.

  Control wouldn’t be so hard for him, because triggering his power was done through specific sweeps. But Elsa was a different story. She kept herself barely in check. More than once he caught her slavering over the moving bodies around them, eyes pinned to the soft, fleshy humans like a child in a candy store.

  “Hey. Easy. You’ll get yours.”

  Elsa tried to say something, but all that came out was a stifled hiss and a clenching of her jaw. She looked raw in the scalding hot desert, wincing against the triple suns’ heated glare but withstanding it all the same.

  If she was hard to kill on Earth, what about now?

  Near the top of the massive hill, things got harder, trudging up the sandy incline, even with his and Elsa’s enhanced strength and power.

  Bess threw up her hand and called a halt where the sand ended and they stood on a sort of rocky ledge jutting ten feet out. The massive rock outcrop rose high on their left, and she guided them north around it, until the heat of the suns was mostly blocked, leaving them to rest in a sliver of shade.

  After a brief rest, they got up and moving again, winding their way upward until they reached a point where the ledge fell away and they could go no further. Lonnie peered over to see they were at least three hundred feet up. His stomach churned for a moment until he realized that fall wouldn’t likely kill him.

  Bess and Alex, both sweating profusely, hefted some ropes and hooks from their gear. “We need to get up to that shelf. Elsa?”

  The whorchal nodded, retrieving the clawed ends of the ropes and a hammer, and looked upward.

  “Stand back,” she said. When she stood no chance of knocking anyone off, she flexed her arms, shoulder blades sliding through the pre-cut slits in her ECC suit, and a pair of wings burst free. She stepped back, flapping with powerful wing beats, and then leapt upward, stretching as she gained altitude, trailing the rope as she went.

  “I have to admit that’s both weird and awesome,” Alex mumbled, unable to help himself as she watched wide-eyed beneath the wind of Elsa’s wings.

  Jeff wiped his hand across his goggles. “To you, multiplication is weird.”

  “Fuck you, Fat Boy.”

  “Eat shit, Musclehead.”

  “Can it, boys,” Bess grumbled, and Lonnie could tell she wasn’t a happy lady. Pissed off at losing three operatives, the chip on her shoulder was huge.

  Elsa disappeared over the rock shelf. The rope ran on for for another ten feet and shook as the sounds of hammering came from above. And then Elsa’s pale face peered over the edge.

  “Come,” she called.

  The soldiers put on their climbing gear and attaching themselves to the ropes. Tuck and Betty got to the top, taking with them a rope and pulley system, rigging it up, and then giving the go ahead to come up. The rest of them practically flew up the wall, all in less than ten minutes.

  Bess sent Tuck and Betty up the next few levels, each terrace between ten and fifteen feet high, easy enough to scale without having to use the serious gear again, just some picks and the natural crevices in the reddish stone.

  They on a shelf that held all of them comfortably.

  “What about me, Bess?” Elsa flexed her wings with a slight wince. Lonnie saw she wasn’t fully healed from the ordeal with Jedi, but she was mending fast.

  “Yeah, anything you can get us Elsa. Clearly you’re in the best position to um…”

  “Fly around with bat w
ings?”

  “Right.”

  There was a blast of wind and she was gone.

  As the crew stowed the climbing gear, Bess sidled up to Lonnie, pulling out a small tablet fixed to the front of her suit. She looked at a topical map of the stone rise, elevations clearly marked with ascending and descending numbers.

  Kristanna, who’d been cutting in now and then, said, “You see an easy way up, M2?”

  “We should have some specifics shortly. How about you, Kris? You’re the logistics expert. You’ve been studying the topography. You see an easy way?”

  Arrows and circles appeared across the surface of the tablet, drawn remotely by Kristanna from another world. “How does that look?”

  Bess traced her finger across what looked like part of the outcropping that rose gradually, merging with the back of the stone building. “Thanks, Kris. I like the first suggestion, provided it’s passable when we get there. I’ll have the scouts check it out. That includes our fly gal, Elsa.”

  “I read you,” came Elsa’s voice over the line.

  Static burst in their earpieces from Kristanna’s side. “That sounds…what…too many…”

  The rest of it broke up.

  “Uh… Kris, we’re getting some static here. Everything okay?”

  When her counterpart didn’t immediately reply, Bess tried again until the line cleared of static and Kristanna was able to respond. “Yeah, everything’s fine here. Well, we do seem to have a problem.”

  “A problem? What is it?”

  “Nothing we can’t handle, M2. Please focus on the mission.”

  Lonnie cut in. “Just tell us what’s up. Maybe we can help.”

  When Kristanna replied, her voice was clipped with tension. “We’ve got an issue. The hill is being attacked.”

  “Not unexpected,” Bess said. “How many?”

  “Unknown, M2. You handle your problem and we’ll handle ours.”

  Bess’s eyes turned to the sky, scanning the huge outcrop they were scaling. Then she glanced at Lonnie, nodding. “Roger that, Base. Continuing with the mission.”

  Elsa landed on the ridge above them. “I found a way. Come up here. I’ll send the scouts back to you.

  Grinning, Lonnie took several steps back, then made a running jump to the next rock lip ten feet above them, sweeping with his hands as he ran, feeling runes rise along his skin. His power propel him, hands and feet scrambling up the rough grading until he reached the top.

  “I’ll bet you can do a three-sixty slam dunk,” Jeff called up with awe in his voice. “Probably better than Michael Jordan.”

  “No one is better than Michael Jordan,” Alex corrected the medic, shaking his head.

  Lonnie leaned over the edge and threw his arm out, smiling. “Next.”

  He picked up Nina and Dion first, then Rachel, Steve, Tall Thomas, and the rest. Lonnie felt as strong as an ox. Stronger. Even Alex wasn’t so hard to lift, although the guy’s hand dwarfed Lonnie’s.

  They moved up two or three more levels the same way, up and up until the final cliff ledge was just wide enough to hold them all. A crevice yawned before them, eight or nine feet across, the ledge picking up again after that. It was the only way to go. An easy enough jump, even with all their gear. But one slip, one screwup, and anyone could easily plunge to their deaths.

  Tuck and Betty waited for them on the other side of the gap. Turned out this was the way Kristanna had drawn on Bess’s topographical map, so they were definitely on the same page.

  “Okay, people. Let’s get across,” Bess said. “Nina, Dion, you know the drill.”

  They scooted back make room. It was tight up here with their backs pressed up against a stone wall.

  Tiny space, Lonnie thought, and we’re easy targets.

  Nina took a few quick strides and launched herself across, making it easily. Dion made it with no problems, too. Then the rest of them came across.

  “Better get Fat Boy harnessed up,” Alex smirked when it was Jeff’s turn. “He’s never going to make that. We’re going to have Pillsbury dough splattered all over the place down there.”

  Before Bess could give him the go, Jeff took three quick strides and leaped the chasm, none-too-gracefully, right into Dion’s waiting arms.

  The medic stumbled, turned, and wiped his hand across his dusty mask. “Don’t slip, Alex. Hate to see the world’s average IQ go up ten points.”

  His heart hammering at Jeff’s sudden and reckless heroics, Lonnie still couldn’t couldn’t help but chuckle at these two clowns.

  “I’m going to knock that guy out someday when you’re not looking, Boss.”

  “I’ll never not be looking, Rios. Just get your big ass across there.”

  The last handful leapt the gap, and they were all safely on the other side.

  Lonnie took a moment to study the overhangs and cliffs above them. There were some strange markings beneath some of the most shadowy spots. Like mold, or holes bored into the rocks. “Elsa, do you see those?”

  Elsa swooped by, spinning on her side in the air. “Yes. Probably just stone mite burrows. Mostly harmless. If we move carefully enough we won’t even disturb them.”

  Those holes looked big enough for a large cat to squeeze in. Hardly seemed harmless to Lonnie. But he nodded and moved around the ledge, now the last in line, with Alex and Bess having moved further ahead, squeezing past the others.

  Something nagged at him. From his past—the memories were starting to heat up now—he recalled several breeds of stone mites. Stories about them from stone workers and the minor lords who lived in the great stone manses of Hell. Nuisances, for the most part. Things everyone complained about when there wasn’t much else to complain about. But there was something else, too. Some other bit of information, something ominously resting on the edges of his memory.

  He eyed the stone mite burrows warily and pressed on.

  They followed the lip of rock down the west face and then around the curve of the south side, which provided them their first view of their entry gate over by Outcrop #1.

  They gate itself lay in a cave in the base of the outcrop. They’d come out next to a pool of water that looked murky at best. The ECC scientific team had left some specimen gathering gear laying around, and they were no doubt having a field day.

  It was a temporary gate, just a shimmering surface hanging in the air, Torri having expertly found the place scrying the ECC maps of Hell. Lonnie couldn’t say he understood her kind of magic, especially when combined with technology, but between the ECC and Torri, they’d certainly mastered it.

  Lonnie looked up against the sun-drenched rock at their backs, more of those strange burrows defacing overhangs and niches. Scooting to the edge, Lonnie looked down over the scarab-man field. He could barely see the blood stains from the fight, but he knew they were there. The first casualties in this war to destroy Azarah’s tether.

  Lonnie looked east as far as he could see, across the heat stoked desert toward home. His breath caught in his chest as he marveled at the magnificent rock formations, pieces of balanced stone atop spires of striated reds and oranges. A distant line of mist hiding The Spill and The Rim beyond that. Further on would be the Boiling Sea and Xester.

  What awaited him there, should he choose to go home?

  Elsa flew in a long arc overhead and then swooped in to land hard on the ledge between Lonnie and Tall Thomas.

  “Sorry, Lons,” she said, wincing. “My back and wings. I’m still not the old Elsa.”

  “That’s okay. You’ve done great already. A real trooper.”

  Elsa sneered her thanks.

  Bess continued warning them to keep their spacing, six or seven yards apart, eyes scanning up and down for signs of danger. The skies, too, for they would have very little cover if attacked from there—that wide open, yawning sky with clouds that changed color between orange and ash. In full view of Septu’s three suns now, even Lonnie started to feel the heat, sweating profusely in his suit.

>   He unhooked a tube from his shoulder, put it between his lips, and sucked some lukewarm water out of his pack. He couldn’t see anyone else beyond Tall Thomas, and then even he disappeared around the southern corner, heading up the east side out of sight.

  Lonnie muted his line with two taps of his ear piece. “Elsa, did you see anything else up there?”

  “What should I have been looking for?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t help but think back at some of my travels with the Brit and my father. Things we’d learned about the stone mites.” The recollections of his previous life in Hell were quickening, like when he’d first started remembering things after coming out of his iced state in the 8th Street Apartment. Lonnie dreaded another influx of memories, but he didn’t have the luxury of holding them back now. He’d have to be strong enough to handle it.

  He took a deep breath and focused on looking back into his past, trying to remember anything that might help them.

  “Yeah, so? We used to get them, too. In the manses and castles we took over.”

  “Right. And what did you do with them?”

  “We caught the little bastards and crushed them. Some of us, only the most hungry and pathetic, cracked them open and ate them.”

  They continued walking along the outer rim, Lonnie glancing at the ground far, far below.

  “And what would have happened if you hadn’t done that? Hadn’t crushed or eaten them?”

  Elsa snickered, folding her wings into her shoulders with a derisive snap. “Are you now obsessed with stone mites, Lons? Do you want me to get one for you to keep as a pet?”

  “No. I don’t know. It’s just something nagging at me.”

  They caught up with Tall Thomas, who had slowed. He caught the man’s eye, and they shared a nod before Thomas turned his head the other way. Lonnie leaned forward to see past the tall man and caught site of Rachel Dillard and another commando peering ahead around the rock.

  “Team look sharp.” Bess’s voice sounded tense over the line.

  Lonnie’s foot kicked against something that hadn’t been there a second ago. He looked down to see a dull, gray, segmented carapace. Much like that of a pill bug one might find on the sidewalk after a particularly rainy day on Earth. It ran into his foot, bounced back, and reared up in what appeared to be a threatening gesture.