The guard landed a short distance away as David leapt to his feet and drew his sword. He stumbled for a moment as the gravity of his fall hit him, but he never let down his guard. The subject Mutation attempted to take the advantage David momentarily offered, but he swung his sword in defense, and the subject backed away. David stepped back to attempt to keep both Mutations in view, but the Mutations assumed opposite positions making it very difficult for David to watch them both. He dared not make the first move this time.
Suddenly, the guard feinted behind David and leapt onto his back. The subject tried to attack from the front as the guard tried to bite David. David swung at the subject, who avoided the swing. David grabbed the guard by the shirt and threw him to the ground. The guard immediately jumped to his feet and attacked again. David took several swings, but the guard moved unbelievably fast, avoiding each one. Even among the most advanced Rastem, he had never seen anyone move so fast.
David realized too late that he had failed to watch the subject when the subject suddenly grabbed him from behind, holding both of David’s arms in a vice grip. David desperately fought against the subject’s grip as the guard closed in again. They each closed in on David’s neck.
Then, the subject lurched unexpectedly. The guard was distracted long enough for David to kick him away. He broke the subject’s grip and realized Abraham had made his way downstairs and had stabbed the subject in the back. Abraham withdrew his dagger and stabbed again. In a swift move, the subject threw Abraham to the ground and pounced on him, holding his dagger hand still.
David tried to reach Abraham, but the guard had recovered and attacked David again. David used every ounce of training in him, but every lighting fast swing was met with a faster dodge by the Mutation. David was unable to get a single hit in on his adversary, and while he fought with the guard, the subject was preparing to make a meal of Abraham.
David glanced back to Abraham whose dagger lay worthless on the ground, his hand pinned by the subject. The guard took the opening of David’s distraction and kicked him against the wall of a building.
Thunder rolled again as the strength of the Mutations overwhelmed David and Abraham. Abraham screamed as the subject bit into the side of his neck. David braced for the inevitable. Rain fell. David thought morbidly that the rain would wash this carnage away and no one would be any the wiser. Their short-lived mission to destroy the Mutation had failed. Abraham had succeeded in developing the ultimate weapon for the Tepish. They would overrun the human populace in no time with speed and strength like this.
Then he noticed that the guard had released his grip. He watched in wonder as steam rose from the guard’s skin where the water hit it. The guard looked at his arms where steam rose with every drop of water, and David saw confusion and pain on the guard’s face. He looked to Abraham and the subject’s back was steaming as the rain fell harder and harder against it. Abraham kicked the subject off him.
The Mutations reeled in pain and screamed as their skin melted under the pelting rain like butter in the summer sun. Abraham and David stood side by side and could only watch in wonder and horror as the rain, which brought life to the world, opened wounds on the Mutations. Blood that flowed from their rapidly spreading water wounds quickly soaked their clothes. They fell to the ground, writhing and screaming in the storm as trails of steam filled the air and blood pooled around them as the rain washed it all away. Soon, they stopped moving. The rain had killed them.
David and Abraham stared at what remained, oblivious to the rain soaking them. Neither spoke for a very long time as steam continued rising from the Mutation corpses.
“Did you know that would happen?” David finally asked, never taking his eyes from their deceased attackers.
Abraham slowly shook his head, his mouth open. David noticed that Abraham’s neck was bleeding from the Mutation’s bite.
“How much like the myth are these creatures?” David asked, staring at Abraham’s wound. Abraham looked at him, confused. David pointed to Abraham’s neck. Abraham reached up, touched the wound with his fingers, and regarded the blood he pulled back.
“Oh,” Abraham said, realizing why David had asked. “A bite won’t change anyone. They’re just like us in that regard. The serum is in their blood, so they’d have to get their blood in their victim somehow. The bite just opens the victim to be drained.”
“How are you so cold about it?” David asked.
“I’m keeping a lot of emotions in check right now, David,” Abraham said bluntly. “Can we just leave it at that?”
David looked at him for a long moment and considered what emotions he might be suppressing. Grief over Beth, maybe. His revenge against David. Maybe even the pain and frustration over his own creation attacking him. Whatever it was, David just nodded.
“All right,” David said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Abraham nodded and turned to the edge of town. David walked back to Beth’s body, now drenched in the falling rain. It had washed away her blood, and now she looked peaceful. He would come back for his Rastem clothes later. There was too much to do. He picked her up gently and held her close to him. He looked at Abraham who only watched as David walked toward him.
Neither spoke a word as David passed him and led the way to the Levi-Cart some distance out of town. As they walked, he heard Abraham sniffle once, and he was certain of at least one emotion he had been keeping in check. David was grateful for the rain. Tears that fell with every step of the old friends were cleansed as the Earth wept for the end of Elizabeth Carpenter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Out of the Tomb
Silence. It had been silent for more than an hour. The silence served to compound the effect of the dead air Tiberius had been breathing all day. He had listened carefully to the sounds outside the crypts as troops had passed by them multiple times through the course of the day causing the occasional light to stream in through the cracks in the coffin. He had long since lost track of time waiting for the Tepish to give up their search. His hope was that if the Rastem laid low long enough, the Tepish might believe they had found another way out and leave. It had been silent long enough. He had to risk getting out.
He slowly opened the lid of his temporary tomb and found the junction area to be completely dark. Even the stale air of the tunnel was a relief to the air of death inside the coffin. He crawled out of the coffin completely and listened intently through the darkness. No lights shown anywhere, nor were there any sounds in the catacombs. He took in another breath and noticed a pungent smell filled the cavern. The smell had not been present when they arrived here hours ago.
He pulled the handle down on the torch. It roared to life and illuminated the small area containing the eight coffins, five of which held the rest of his warriors. Running down the sides of the area and stretching down the halls were two long lengths of rope. He noticed the ropes were occasionally knotted to make the lengths continuous. They stretched out as far as he could see out of two of the four exits from the room.
He knelt down and touched the ropes, which shimmered from some kind of substance that they were soaked in. It was black, thick, and slick to the touch. He sniffed his fingers and confirmed that these ropes as the source of the hideous smell. The scent was so unfamiliar, he was not only unable to identify it, but he doubted he had smelled anything like it before.
“Rastem! We’re clear,” Tiberius called out quietly. The other five immediately exited their crypts. One by one, they stood in the center of the room taking in what air there was despite the smell.
“And I thought the air was stale out here,” Kaltesh commented, taking in deeper breaths than the rest of them. Falta had already knelt down to the ropes.
“What are these?” she asked.
“Not sure,” Tiberius admitted. “They are damp with a foul-smelling substance. I don’t like it.”
“What do you think?” Yori asked Tiberius, coming right to the point. “Further in, or back the way we came?”
“I doubt the Tepish would let us go so easily,” Boltash commented.
“I agree,” Tiberius nodded. “But we may not find another way out. We can’t remain down here forever.”
“So we take our chances either way,” Tyran said.
“Our other problem concerns whether the Tepish actually left or are down here waiting for us to show ourselves,” Tiberius said. “I know that if I were them, I would be waiting.”
“If we stay together,” Kaltesh said, “we should be able to defend ourselves. We have the advantage of surprise.”
“And if I remember correctly,” Tiberius said, “there is another way in near the cemetery. We just need to find it.”
“What if they are watching that exit?” Tyran asked.
“Do you want to stay down here?” Tiberius tossed back. Tyran shook his head.
Yori spoke from one of the doorways where the Tepish had placed the ropes. “Tiberius, they may have given us our way out,” she said.
“Oh?” Tiberius said.
“These ropes have to go somewhere,” she explained. “I know I would go this way, which is where they’re going. I doubt they would just string them randomly through the caves.”
“I would have put them on our path,” Kaltesh said.
“You know they’ll be waiting when we come out,” Yori said.
“I’ll take a good fight over this,” Tyran said.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Tiberius said. He handed the torch to Yori who set off immediately down the tunnel. Tiberius followed her closely with the other four tight behind him.
They moved quickly, but cautiously down the tunnels which snaked toward an unknown end. Yori only paused a couple of times to get her bearings, but confirmed that she would just keep following the ropes.
A low rumble sounded behind them. “Do you hear something?” Boltash asked everyone from the rear of the formation. The sound was getting louder, but then Tiberius smelled it. Smoke. He was unable to hold back the fear in his expression as the purpose of the ropes occurred to him.
“They’re smoking us out!” he declared. “Run!”
Without any other choice, they charged single file down the halls as the catacombs grew orange behind them. Whatever was on those ropes, it was allowing them to burn quickly. It took only seconds for the flames to catch up to them and then pass them by entirely.
The heat was intense, but they had to keep moving or they would die. Their cold body temperature served to make the heat even worse. Smoke filled the tunnels, and it became more and more difficult to see despite their glowing path. The old wooden supports began to burn, and Tiberius wondered if they would reach the end of the tunnel before it all came down on their heads.
Suddenly, the ropes ended. They found themselves against a door. As one, they pushed the door wide open, disregarding any caution over what might await them. The six Rastem poured out of the tunnel, smoke billowing out behind them. They coughed in the closed air of the building they had entered. After a moment of coughing, Tiberius looked around.
As he suspected, the other exit from the catacombs was in the cemetery. He suspected that in order to match the entrance and exit, the Tepish simply entered from the cemetery and met up in the middle. But rather than the exit emptying into the open air, they had emerged in a mausoleum. People who could afford to remain above ground had themselves interred in stone coffins set into the stone walls. The trademark Erim grey stone was all around them, but the stone quickly turned to black as the smoke filled the closed space and gathered against the ceiling.
“We’ve got to get some fresh air,” Tyran declared, moving for the exit.
“Wait!” Tiberius called out, still gasping for breath. He knew they had to get out of this room as soon as possible, but they had a moment to assess their situation before running headlong into it. He ran to the double doors that led outside and listened carefully.
He heard a series of voices muffled by the thick walls of the mausoleum. He could hear that one voice stood out over the rest, giving orders, but through the walls, it was impossible to hear what that voice was saying. What he could determine, however, was that they were waiting. Though exhausted, they had one more fight ahead of them.
Tiberius stepped back from the doors and drew his sword. “Get ready,” he said. As one, the six Rastem who had survived the sun, the Mutations, and the fire drew their swords and readied themselves for one more fight. Tiberius stepped forward and took the handle of one of the doors. He looked at Tyran and directed his eyes to the other door. Tyran ran to the other door and held its handle.
Tiberius counted off. “1 … 2 … 3!” He and Tyran flung the doors open and all six charged into the cemetery outside. The cool air hit him full on in the face, and it was beyond refreshing. He felt his strength come back to him. He prepared to strike until he saw the owners of the muffled voices.
Ulrich stared at them with an uncharacteristically surprised expression as a small band of Elewo piled a dozen Tepish carcasses beside gravestones. Tiberius lowered his sword as Ulrich calmly cast his gaze over the six remaining Rastem.
“Well,” he said in that low, calm voice Tiberius knew so well, “that explains the Tepish build-up in the cemetery.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Poetic Justice
David held the controls of the Levi-Cart steady as he flew over the landscape toward Erim. No one had met them at the Levi-Cart, so David had been concerned that something had happened in Erim not only to delay Tiberius and Ulrich, but also to prevent them from sending anyone in their stead. Abraham had not been able to offer any suggestions as to what the Tepish might have done to interfere with the Rastem or Elewo, though he knew that Vladimir was annoyed with their continual presence in Erim. David tried questioning Abraham, but he quickly learned through what little Abraham did say that the Tepish leadership kept Abraham quite uninformed about everything outside his work on the Mutation.
Before they climbed into the Cart, David had looked over the floor of the cave and slipped three palm-sized rocks into his pocket to use for their plan to destroy the Tepish Fortress, which lurked not too far into their future. He was unsure as to whether he would find anything else along the way to work any better.
As they flew, David glanced at his old friend out of the corner of his eye. Abraham sat stoically on the right side of the Levi-Cart calmly watching the fields roll by and had not spoken since they left the cave. It reminded David of his trip to Kelïrum with Beth. The rain had let up soon after they started, but they were both still very wet from the momentary downpour followed by their rapid flight through the rain in the Levi-Cart, which possessed no cover to prevent them from getting wet while using it. Tiberius had mentioned once that Zechariah’s Cart did have a cover at one point, but there was no way of knowing what happened to it.
David turned his thoughts to Beth’s body, resting in the seat behind him much as she had ten years ago when he had changed her. This time, however, she was dead, and he had only taken her body to give her a proper burial as soon as he had the chance. Procedurally, when a Fempiror died in the course of a battle, they burned the body to prevent any chance of their blood intermingling with a human who might stumble across the corpse. He could not do this to Beth though. He felt obligated to bury her in Hauginstown.
“How do you propose to get me inside once we arrive?” David asked.
Abraham shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Act drugged. I’ll explain around it.”
“And they’ll just let you take me in there unescorted?” David asked.
“As accustomed as you are to improvising your way through life,” Abraham answered, “I prefer to plan things out a little better. I’m thinking, and that’s about the best I have for the moment.”
David nodded, and Abraham went back to staring at the fields. He feared this would be a very short trip if someone decided to stop Abraham, and they were forced to fight it out. Abraham could very easily turn on him if the oppor
tunity arose; he certainly had the hatred for it. And yet, even though they were on opposite sides, David still felt that he could trust Abraham’s word. Abraham seemed genuinely mortified over the attack at Kelïrum, genuinely distraught over Beth’s death, and genuinely interested in destroying the Mutation. So until they completed this collaborative mission, David believed he could trust Abraham.
Ahead of them, Erim loomed. David steered into the Southwest part of town in order to avoid any eyes that might be watching from the fortress tower. True, he was riding in with a Tepish, but he did not want his Levi-Cart to become part of the Tepish arsenal, which was another very real concern he had. Even though its primary residents were night dwellers, Erim remained largely a dark city at night in these days. This made the task of steering through the tight back streets to get as close to the fortress as possible very difficult. When he had arrived here with Zechariah ten years ago, they stayed on the main roads, and indeed, only the main roads were wide enough for a Levi-Cart to move easily. The majority of the paths off the main road were for foot travelers; there had never been a reason to change that.
After some tight cornering and near misses with several buildings, David finally stopped next to an abandoned shop near the fortress. Abraham watched him closely as he jumped out of the Cart and walked to the large rear door of the building, which used to be a wood carver’s shop. When he had used the Levi-Cart more often, he had used this place multiple times as a hiding place for it, primarily because it was so close to the fortress, and the Rastem had never known the Tepish to check it.
“What are you doing?” Abraham asked.
“I’ve hidden here before,” David answered. “It has a large back door and space enough inside to house the Levi-Cart while we do what we need to. I’d rather not leave Beth out in the open, if I can help it.”
Mutation Genesis (The Fempiror Chronicles Book 2) Page 18
