by Ginn Hale
“The best I’m likely to manage is a poor imitation, but it’s not too bad, if I do say so myself.”
Grover nodded. No doubt it would be like nothing else he’d tasted, and he looked forward to that. Though he found himself thinking of all the other fascinating and exotic things he might have experienced if he’d traveled across the world as Lawrence had. For the first time it occurred to him that he could have done so. Nothing but his own fear of the larger world had kept him from following after Lawrence when he’d left.
“Something wrong?” Lawrence inquired.
“No. I was just pondering how hard it might have been to hunt you down all those years ago,” Grover admitted. “I should have tried.”
Lawrence frowned like Grover had suggested something almost unbearable. He set the spice box aside and met Grover’s curious gaze directly.
“As much as I missed you, Grove. As much as I know you would have fought better and harder than anyone I could have had with me—I’m glad that you weren’t there.” Lawrence reached out and stroked Grover’s shoulder almost as if assuring himself of the solidity of Grover’s body.
“I’m not proud of this.” Lawrence’s stare faltered and he bowed his head. “But there were weeks when I lost all hope… I stopped carrying my pistol because I kept imagining myself putting it to my head and pulling the trigger. Up in the mountains, I fantasized of just stepping off a cliff’s edge. But the idea of getting back here to you, that kept me moving on the path in front of me. In the worst days, you were the only goal—the only future I could keep fighting to reach. You kept me alive.”
“I…I’m glad I stayed here, then.” Grover drew Lawrence into an embrace, and for a few moments they held each other close. Then Grover drew back just a little and offered Lawrence his best smile. “But from now on I’m not leaving you on your own to face trouble. I’m with you, Lawry. For better or worse.”
Grover kissed Lawrence’s freshly shaven cheek once, before drawing away. It would only embarrass Lawrence if he made too much of Lawrence’s confession or his own promise. “I’d better fetch those onions and potatoes if we’re ever gonna have our supper.”
Lawrence nodded then turned away to wipe something from his eyes.
Grover found a good number of decent potatoes and a nice plump, golden onion out back in the root cellar. When he climbed out of the dark, cramped space, he only absently noticed how quiet the afternoon seemed. Wind sighed through the trees, and the rumble of the distant river filled the air, but all the little songbirds and chipmunks had fallen silent.
Grover should have taken more notice, but the idea of calling King Douglass occupied most of his thoughts—well, that and washing up to look even a shade as handsome as Lawrence.
He strode past the small stable and glanced over to see what Betty and Romeo were up to. They crouched beside a small, messy nest both staring intently up in silence. Grover followed their gazes and horror flooded his entire body.
A hundred yards away, a bigtooth stood between the towering spruce trees, staring down at the ridingbirds. It stood taller than Grover’s cabin, and yet its striped hide and perfect stillness allowed it to fade into the surrounding forest. The play of light and shadow fell across its olive plumes, lending them an almost botanical appearance. Then it charged, swinging its massive jaws wide.
Romeo bolted up to his feet, spreading his wings and shrieking at the giant, while Betty flattened herself over their pitiful nest.
“Don’t you touch them, you ugly bastard!” Grover didn’t think. He bounded forward, throwing all of his will against the bigtooth’s momentum and hunger. To his shock the bigtooth turned. Its attention focused entirely on Grover.
He froze in his tracks. He couldn’t outrun the thing at this distance, and he’d left his rifle in the cabin, like a damn fool. The small grip he held over the bigtooth’s voracious mind offered him his only hope of surviving. But all that “hearing the stones and feeling the air” Lawrence had told him about felt impossible to concentrate on. And no way in hell was he going to close his eyes and simply relax. He couldn’t sense any shining lights nor did the surrounding trees glow with a calming beauty.
Instead only a raw, savage hunger lashed against Grover like a brand burning inside his head. The need to charge, to bite and feed roiled through every part of the creature. There was no way to alter any of that. Grover simply fought with all his might and concentration to hold the bigtooth back. He didn’t say a word, and yet his mind rang with the command, Stop.
The bigtooth snarled and shook its huge head. Slowly it lifted one massive leg and took a step towards Grover. It started for a second step, but Grover fought it for every inch. Sweat poured down his brow, and his entire body shook like he stood in ice water. The bigtooth hissed soft and low like an angry snake. Its foot trembled as it took a second step closer. Now the strangely sweet smell of its body drifted over him. It lowered its head, and Grover thought he could feel hot breath hit his face.
Suddenly a wall of blinding blue light flared up before Grover.
He felt it rise and envelope the bigtooth in flames. The animal’s sense sizzled in agony—skin blackening, lungs searing and bones cracking open like popcorn—and Grover howled with it as it burned. An instant later, a tower of ash and charred bone stood before Grover and yet his mind still blazed with the shock of pain.
He heard Betty peeping at him like a frightened chick, and he turned to her. He glimpsed two white oblong eggs lying in her nest but his vision seemed to dim and blur—like he’d spent the whole day drinking whiskey.
His legs tangled under him and he hardly felt Lawrence catch him. Lord, Lawrence looked pale and stricken. Grover wanted to assure him that he was fine. In a minute he’d shake this all off.
But he couldn’t.
Grover lay somewhere quiet and dark. His head pounded like his brain was trying to hammer its way out of his skull. He tried to sit up but discovered his arms were shaking too much to support him. The faintest circle of gold floated from the darkness and touched his brow like a kiss. The pain eased.
He lay back, relaxing to the brink of sleep, though he sensed there were things that needed doing. Onions and potatoes. He’d dropped them, hadn’t he? Lawrence would find them, he assured himself. They’d have supper and he’d enjoy his first taste of masala.
A wonderful scent drifted over him. But it wasn’t new or exotic. Instead he drew in a deep breath of a man’s body, traced with smoke and ponderosa.
Lawrence.
Grover thought he must have slept because he felt that little jolt of waking suddenly. He’d forgotten to do something—something critical. The answer came to him at once. He needed to bring King Douglass to them. They didn’t have much time.
“I’m calling him for you, Lawry.” Even to his own ears his voice sounded slurred and slow.
“Hush now, darling,” Lawrence whispered through the dark. “You just rest. Don’t worry yourself about any of that.”
But Grover couldn’t keep from feeling compelled to reach out. He hardly knew why only that if he didn’t he would lose Lawrence again. Even as he drifted in his dreams, he felt himself stretching across the vast expanse of the open sky to soar with King Douglass. Cold winds swept over his wings, and he turned into them riding high above the airship speeding beneath him.
Odd how soft the clouds looked but how bitterly cold and rough they felt to pass through. He shook frigid water droplets from his body and dived low to catch the warm thermals rising off the wide dark river.
How brightly all the fish down there glowed. They were a stream of tiny lights floating out to the vast sea. Or perhaps they were stars swimming through the currents of an eternal night. Grover felt he could watch them flash and flicker forever.
“Grove, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I can’t wait any longer. I sighted Tucker’s airship early this afternoon.”
&n
bsp; Grover heard Lawrence’s words but their full implication eluded his drifting mind.
I saw it too, Grover thought, though he wasn’t certain he got any words out.
“I don’t want to leave you, darling.” Lawrence’s lips brushed over his own. “I never wanted to. But this time, I’m doing it for the right reason. I hope you’ll know that.”
He felt Lawrence draw away from him and heard the door creak. The room felt colder. Grover pulled his blankets closer around him.
Very slowly, like drops of poisoned honey, Lawrence’s words coalesced in his consciousness.
Tucker’s airship was here, and Lawrence had gone to close the rift the only way he could. He was going to pull the stones down on top of himself.
Alarm shot through Grover.
He bolted up from his bed. His head throbbed and his ears rang, but he didn’t give a damn. He couldn’t let Lawrence go alone, not this time. He had to do what he’d lacked the courage to manage eight years ago. Chase Lawrence down and stand with him. Grover stumbled across the room, snatched his rifle from beside the door and then was out.
The sun already hung low on the horizon and all around him the long shadows of spruce trees lay like prison bars. Grover sprinted for the tunnels. Just as the cavernous mouth loomed before him, Grover stumbled and belatedly realized that in his delirious state, he’d bolted from the cabin wearing neither his shirt, boots, nor his gun belt. Blood dribbled from the cuts running along his bare feet but he didn’t slow.
He raced through the tunnel, tracing it by habit and terrifying a vixen and her kits in his wild charge. The roar of the river filled his ears, and he tasted salt mist as he gasped in fast breaths.
Nearly there.
But even before he reached the promontory, he heard a loud crash of stone and felt the ground of the tunnel shudder with the impact. Grover stumbled sideways and a terrible vertigo swelled through him. He reached out and steadied himself against the cave wall. Damn it, damn it, damn it!
He staggered ahead despite the tremors that shook the walls and floor of the cave. Golden red light poured in from the cave’s mouth. Just a little farther and he’d find Lawrence, he promised himself. Grover bounded over a tortoise and came peeling out onto the promontory.
At the far end of the largest stone bridge, Lawrence stood with his hands raised up to the jagged maw overhead. To his left the frothing waters of the rift waterfall cascaded down the mountain face. A haze of rock dust swirled around him and caught the light of the setting sun. Cracked and burnt-looking boulders studded the ground, and a dark hole—like the socket of a missing tooth—gaped in the rock face at the top of the rift. Lawrence had obviously already destroyed one of the lynchpins. The strain the others placed on the surrounding rock played through the entire mountain, in faint tremors.
Brilliant blue light flared from Lawrence’s extended fingers and rose up to the stones above him like a swarm of furious wasps. The mountain groaned, low and deep. Grover jumped to the weathered surface of the largest bridge. The rock beneath his battered feet strained like a dying animal.
Then, over the roar of the waterfall and the low groans of the mountain ahead, Grover heard a high-pitched hum. He looked up to his right in time to see the Tuckers’ star-spangled dirigible clear the cliffs overhead and descend into the ravine. A big brassy cannon turned towards Lawrence.
“Lawry! Get down!” Grover’s warning didn’t carry over the thunder of the cannon fire. A smaller stone bridge to Lawrence’s right shattered. Lawrence fell against a boulder as rock debris flew through the air. The boom echoed and rebounded through the ravine.
Lawrence pulled himself upright and turned to take in the airship but like a damn fool simply returned to reaching out for the massive boulders of alchemic stone embedded in the mountain wall above him.
The sun-shaped insignia of the Office of Theurgy and Magicum gleamed across the muzzle of its cannon as crewmen angled for a second volley. Grover guessed that only the poor light had saved Lawrence from their first shot. But they seemed unlikely to miss a second time.
Grover hefted his rifle. Then he caught sight of that beautiful, torn white wing soaring through the clouds.
Immediately he reached out to curl his senses around those of King Douglass. A sharp pain shot through his head, but he forced himself to push past it. He clenched his eyes closed and drew in a slow, deep breath, despite the hammering of his heart and his racing pulse.
King Douglass shone like a star against the frigid heavens. Grover exhaled, and his awareness rose like smoke on the wind. When he reached King Douglass, the contact felt oddly familiar and comfortable, as if they’d already grown secure in each other’s company. Briefly, Grover wondered if he hadn’t reached the thunderbird in his dreams after all.
Then he focused on turning King Douglass’s attention to the airship and inviting the thunderbird to strike the fat balloon and rip a strip off the top of it. At that angle of attack, Grover knew the crew couldn’t turn their guns on King Douglass; their shot would hit their own alchemic engine.
Delight at the prospect of defeating the ugly interloper in his sky coursed through King Douglass.
The thunderbird dived, slashing its sabre-sharp beak through the cloth of the balloon like a tailor shearing through muslin. Hot gasses rushed free in his wake, and at once the airship lurched. It began to swiftly drop. Men shouted and alarms sounded. The cannon was forgotten as the crew hurled anchor ropes out to the stone bridges and into the walls of the ravine.
Big mechanical claws scraped and grasped the surrounding rock walls. One line shot over the bridge where Lawrence stood and locked around the remains of a small, collapsed bridge. That, at last, stopped the gondola’s descent. But the deflating balloon continued to sink under its own weight, blanketing most of the crew.
King Douglass soared over his defeated foe and sang the long notes of his victory.
That was all Grover could manage. He fell from King Douglass, releasing the thunderbird to wing back to his flaplings.
As he opened his eyes, he found himself sprawled out like a dead dog on the bridge. The airship hung suspended by dozens of creaking ropes, some one hundred feet above him and off to the right. The dull red tones of the setting sun lent it a particularly bloodied appearance. A cacophony of shouts bounced through the ravine. Someone bellowed for a fire suppressor, someone else for parachutes.
Grover managed to rise to his knees and look across the bridge to where Lawrence stood. He turned and stared back at Grover. Then he motioned Grover away frantically.
“Get out of here!” Lawrence’s words hardly carried through the chaos of all the voices echoing from the airship. Grover pushed himself to his feet, and he supposed Lawrence took that for a sign he was leaving, because he turned his attention back to the white stones edging the mouth of the rift.
Again he raised his arms, and this time Grover saw the sparks of blue light whirl up from the stone at Lawrence’s feet to swirl around his body and finally burst from his fingers in a flurry.
Above Lawrence and to his left, a large hunk of rock began to shake. Pebbles and dust rained down. Clumps of wild grass tumbled. If Lawrence noticed any of the debris streaming down on him, he didn’t shift an inch.
Grover felt the tremors spreading below his feet. The boulder crashed down like a cannonball, and the entire stone bridge seemed to buckle. Grover fell forward. Only his sprawled arm cushioned his skull from cracking into the rocky surface of the bridge. His rifle skittered over the edge and plunged down into the river.
Lawrence had been knocked to his knees. Grover thought he saw blood dribbling down the side of Lawrence’s head, but he couldn’t be certain through the huge clouds of dust that billowed up. Lawrence immediately scrambled to his feet and clambered into the rubble. He laid his left hand over a large opal shard, and in an instant it blackened and crumbled like the ash dropping from a ciga
r.
The mountain groaned and hunks of rock all along the rift cracked and rained down as the remaining lynchpins strained against tons of rock. Lawrence sagged on his hands and knees amidst the wreckage. Grover stumbled forward.
He made it halfway across the bridge when he noticed a motion to his right—coming from the airship. Two figures zipped down the line of one of the anchor ropes. They swung directly over the bridge Grover occupied, and dropped.
Neither of them landed with any grace but they kept their feet. Grover glowered at the two blond uniformed men plunked down between him and Lawrence. Even with their backs to him, Grover recognized the Tuckers. The nearer of the two stood less than twenty feet from Lawrence as he eased his pistol from its holster.
Grover let loose a furious roar and charged them. They both glanced back but not fast enough. Grover caught the nearer one around the neck and held him in a headlock.
But the other Tucker fired his pistol.
Lawrence lurched and fell amidst the rubble. Grover felt as though his heart had been stuck through with a stiletto knife. He squeezed hard, choking the Tucker brother in his grasp. His twin spun on Grover and lifted his pistol.
“Release David at once.”
“Hell, no!”
The light was poor, and Grover knew Nathaniel Tucker didn’t have the balls to risk shooting himself. If he had, he would have already fired. No, the Tuckers were the sorts of bastards who shot a man in the back when he was already risking his life to save the entire country from an endless flood.
David Tucker attempted to pull free of Grover’s chokehold, and Grover plowed his fist into his kidneys. That took the fight right out of the snot. At the same time, Nathaniel grunted and paled from the blow. That, Grover found very interesting—maybe even useful.
“You can’t think you’ll get away with this, you son of a—” Nathaniel cut himself off short, as if it had just occurred to him that insulting Grover might not incline him to release his grip on David. “I don’t know what lies Lawrence Wilder told you, but let me assure you that if you cease this beastly behavior at once, he—but not you—will be the only one held accountable. You might even earn a reward.”
