“Negative on the scanner, Matlin.” Brighton made a hand signal to Browder and Santiago: Check it out. “Sending backup. Hold position, over.”
“Copy that,” said Matlin.
If I had a chit for every time Ishi took a detour, she thought.
This was about the last straw for her. She would have to lodge a formal complaint this time. The man was impossible to work with.
She looked around the clearing at the top of the ridge. Other than a large hole in the ground, just down the hill, nothing looked out of place. She did the math. Ishi had not been out of sight long enough to have moved further in already, so about the only place he could have gone was down that hole. Matlin sighed and moved in.
“Ishi, did you fall down a hole, mate? Ain’t you got any peepers? Or are you just takin’ a shit down there?”
She leaned over to investigate.
The status of his peepers was hard to make out, because Ishikawa was lying face-down where he’d landed on a pile of wooden spikes.
Footsteps raced from Matlin’s left, and she whirled to face whoever was coming. “Oh shi—”
Something hard struck her in the face, flattening her nose with a crunch like celery. She lost her balance and fell into the pit. She couldn’t see with all the blood in her eyes. But she could sense that a spike had not gone through her anywhere, somehow. But moments later, she heard the distinctive thwip of an arrow, and incredible pain bloomed in her chest. Then she felt warmth all over. Then nothing at all.
Browder and Santiago arrived at the top of the ridge. Browder tapped his mic. “LT, this is Browder. No sign of either Ishi or Matlin. Both of their tags are putting them several meters underground, over.”
“Copy that, Browder. Hold position. We will form up on you. Scan the area, over.”
“Copy.”
Browder and Santiago used the visors built into their helmets to examine the position for clues. It looked to Browder like there was at least one set of footprints heading to a pit about 15 meters away. Everything the two of them picked up on the scanners was being fed back to the rest of the team.
Brighton checked the analysis on her feed. “Weapons free, I repeat, weapons free. Sound off, over.”
All but Matlin and Ishi sounded off. The squad was down to six.
Brighton and the rest of the group formed up on Browder and Santiago at the top of the ridge. The lieutenant took one look at the hole in the ground, then she wagged two fingers in one direction, then two in the other: Fan out.
Two went left, and two went right. Sergeant Vickers stayed with the lieutenant.
Brighton looked at Vickers, pointed to her eyes, then at several points in the canopy: Watch the treetops.
It was clear that they were not dealing with amateurs. But that was okay. What was a manhunt if the target didn’t try to wriggle out of your grasp first? That would be no fun at all. It was more interesting when they fought back.
Two team members down also meant a bigger slice of the payout, and the pair she'd sent out had been the weakest links in the chain anyway. She'd been looking for an excuse to get rid of them before the unit had to deal with real trouble, rather than this government surveyor and her two guide dogs. The enemy had gotten lucky, that was all. Happened all the time.
She unclasped her combat knife, proceeded straight forward, and let her Spinoza rifle do the searching. Vickers followed close behind. It wouldn't take much longer, now that Matlin and Ishi were no longer mucking things up for the rest of them. The team would probably get back to orbit in time for lunch.
The two soldiers who had gone left came to a ravine. A thick tree trunk crossed its expanse, and it looked like it had been there for a thousand years.
On the other side, someone leaned out from behind a tree and threw a rock at them. The two soldiers sprayed a few rounds in return and trotted onto the tree trunk. “Contact, contact!” one yelled.
When the soldiers reached the midway point of the tree trunk, a hand shot out from behind the same tree and yanked on a nearby vine. This vine was tied to a rucksack that had been hanging high in the branches above. It came swinging down heavily from its perch, and it flew right at the men crossing the ravine. There was nowhere for them to go. The one in front was knocked off the trunk. The one behind him made a desperate and unsuccessful leap back to the far side of the ravine. The 20-meter fall onto the rocks below was not pretty.
Browder and Santiago had gone to the right flank. They arrived in a clearing surrounded by mushrooms that ranged from three to four meters high.
Over the radio, Brighton said, “Charlie team, reposition to the left flank, over!”
The two of them appeared to be a dead end. As they turned around to go support the other flank, a man appeared at the gap where they had come in, and he threw some kind of balloon at them. It was full of a sticky fluid that smelled like tree sap. Browder caught it right in the face and couldn’t see. Both soldiers fired their rifles, but their opponent was already gone.
The radio crackled again. “Charlie team, sound off!”
Browder felt another impact, and then everything was turning into fire. He screamed. It wouldn’t stop burning. He never thought something could hurt this much. He fell down and rolled around on the ground, but he kept burning.
The remaining soldier yelled into her mic, “This is Charlie team, we’re under att—” She was interrupted by a sharp blast of pain in her back. She reached around with one hand and found something sticking out of her ribs. A wooden shaft. She fell to her knees. Someone landed onto the jungle floor just behind her, and then there was a sharp blade at her neck. A man whispered in her ear, “Allah yaghfir lana.”
May God have mercy on us.
The blade was so sharp that there wasn’t even much pain as it sliced through her veins. She just felt a warmth spreading all over the front of her shirt, then a kind of peace.
Brighton and Vickers listened to the gunfire and distant shouts. No one was reporting back. The lieutenant was comforted somewhat by the reliable self-aiming muzzle of her Spinoza, but the silence still unnerved her.
“We should regroup,” whispered Vickers. “Something is wrong.”
Brighton was about to agree when she saw some movement in the trees at 10 o’clock high. She aimed to fire, but her rifle didn’t lock onto a target. Its nozzle barrel darted this way and that, but it detected no hostiles.
Then there was a giant thump as though a boulder had dropped out of the sky and landed just out of sight. The thump came again. Then again. It was gaining a slow rhythm. The reverberations were so deep that it was hard to tell where it was coming from.
She looked up at the canopy, and there was more movement. It looked like half the creatures of the jungle were streaming past them, far overhead. Leaping from mushroom to mushroom, from vine to vine. Running away from something.
The thumping was getting deeper.
“LT...” said Vickers.
Brighton looked at a pool of water off to her left. With every thump, the pool rippled.
“Lieutenant...”
What would do that? What kind of machinery? She couldn’t get her head around it. Out here in the middle of the jungle? No one could airlift something that big.
It sounded like trees were breaking. Not branches, whole trees. It was coming from directly ahead.
The sound of Vickers running away barely registered.
Out of the jungle burst a leviathan beast that Brighton had only seen in the vids. The six-legged, towering behemoth was known as a katorak. She’d never seen one this massive. Its four tusks looked like they could lift an entire house out of the ground and fling it a city block. The sheer scope of the thing, in the flesh, was impossible to comprehend. She’d captained starships that were smaller than this.
And someone rode atop it. A dusky man with curly black hair. As Brighton stared mindlessly, the man grabbed a nearby vine, swung onto it, and landed in a nearby tree.
But the katorak kept coming. It
didn’t seem like anything within fifty square kilometers would be able to stop it.
The last thing Brighton felt before the katorak stampeded through her was a bloom of warmth in her drawers as she pissed herself.
Vickers ran until he made it to the forest’s edge. He had enough presence of mind left to use this vantage point to check the state of the ruins before heading back into them.
Behind him came the tell-tale sound of a stick cracking under someone’s foot. Out of instinct, experience, and relentless drilling, he swung around and launched his Calamity blade in one smooth motion.
A woman stood about ten meters to his right. Vickers had caught her in the middle of drawing a bow. As the blade closed the distance, a man appeared from behind the tree that she stood next to, and he knocked her out of the way. She fell to the ground unharmed, and the blade sliced deeply through the man’s ribs.
Vickers bolted towards them and drew a long knife. He could tell he was going to get to her before she could draw again. The other man was slow getting to his feet. Too slow.
Vickers flipped his knife around for a downward slash. He swung and knocked the bow out of the woman’s hand. He raised his knife again to deliver the killing blow. He looked the woman right in the eyes. They looked sad. It was the proper face of prey that knew its end. The knife came down.
In mid-swing, Vickers felt a spear of pain bursting through his chest. He looked down to see an arrowhead sticking out of him. But where an arrow would have feathers, it had...leaves? That was strange. He was dizzy. His knife slipped from his hand.
Another man came from Vickers’ left. He was holding a machete.
Vickers understood the rest. There was no more fighting. Not today. That would be nice. He was very tired, and he wanted to lie down and rest.
Something metal plunged through him, but the pain didn’t last long.
✽✽✽
Darius jerked his machete out of what he hoped was the last soldier. The man slumped to the ground.
Then Darius bent over and puked. He wiped his mouth, and he asked Nadira if she was all right.
“I’m fine,” she said. “But your brother...” She looked over her shoulder to the tree.
Rali sat at the foot of it. He was bleeding badly. Darius tore off his shirt and tried to use it to stanch his brother's bleeding. Rali was already losing color from both shock and blood loss.
“Nadira!” said Darius. “Get the medkit! It’s at the firepit!”
“Too much blood,” groaned Rali. “And your breath smells like shit.”
“Don’t talk,” said Darius. “Shut up, don’t talk!”
Rali shook his head and put a bloody hand on his brother’s arm. “Darius...”
“We can fix this, Ral! I didn’t go through all this shit just to watch you bleed out in the jungle.”
“Darius,” said his brother, “Listen to me. Listen.”
Darius looked up from the gushing wound and stared at him balefully. “I should have carried some bandages with me. Shit, why didn’t I think of bandages!”
“Darius. The Otrava. Listen. Even the Otrava do not collect—” He gasped and winced. “On the dead...”
“Don’t talk like that. There’s got to be something in the medkit, something I can use for a transfusion, something—”
“You are free, brother.” Rali’s eyes locked onto his. “You are free, shaqiq. The debt...it’s over. But—” he grunted. “But you must keep fighting. There...is more to come.”
Darius was puzzled. “Did you see something? When you drank the tea? What have you not told us?”
“Pain still lies ahead for you, brother. But also...a great beauty.” Ral coughed. His chest rattled. “A beauty greater than you can imagine right now. The path will be revealed.”
Rali looked up to the forest canopy. “Such a...such an amazing sight. Such a wonderful place. Why would you want to be anywhere else?” He coughed again. “I don’t know if there are gods in the sky, D. I wish I did. But right now...I feel like maybe they are looking down on us. I feel...I feel a kind of presence...”
Nadira was back now. She dug through the kit.
Darius waved her off.
Rali took a deep breath and seemed to come back to himself. “But you must fight for this. The battle is not over. Promise me you will not give up.”
Darius wiped tears from his face.
“Promise me, Darius.”
Darius looked down at the wound. It was bad. “I...I promise.”
Rali’s breath came shallower and shallower. “May the gods forgive us,” he whispered.
The light in his eyes began to fade.
Then there were no more breaths, and there was no more light.
Darius closed his brother’s eyes. He closed his own eyes. He laid a hand on his brother’s unbeating chest. And he said, “Hataa naltaqi mujadadaan.”
Until we meet again.
Twilight had begun. Darius looked across the valley to the west, where the ruins were nestled among low, verdant hills.
“I underestimated him.”
✽✽✽
Darius spent half the night digging a grave for his brother. You couldn’t wait until morning out here in the jungle. Not with the appetites and abundance of the creatures that roamed in the shadows.
He also dug because he didn’t want to think. But as he dug, he remembered that manual labor did not free you from thinking. Quite the opposite.
Thoughts about bandages surfaced unbidden. The ghost of hindsight was already haunting him.
Nadira told him that Rali had saved her life. He had been hiding behind the tree next to her, readying a sap bomb. Then the twig cracked under her foot.
“I would do anything to take that moment back,” she said.
Darius tossed yet another shovelful of dirt out of his hole. “It’s not your fault.”
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. He didn't have any fight left in him for arguing.
She went to the ruins to scrounge for food that the squad would no longer need. The moon of Aparna was full tonight. It cast a white-gold glow onto the ancient battlements of Baloneth. The light was bright enough to cast its own moon shadows along the crumbling ramparts, pillars, and steps.
Darius continued to dig. He thought about bandages.
She came back at some point with a full rucksack. She sat by the grave as Darius continued to dig. She wanted sleep, but she didn’t want to leave Darius alone. Not tonight. They had no hammocks now anyway. Maybe the soldiers had brought some. She decided that she would go back at sunrise to do another sweep.
In the meantime, she had to send proof of death to the Otrava gang. She made a short video of Rali’s body and attached his imperial ID tag. She gave them the coordinates of the grave so that they could check independently. She did this with the official imperial letterhead, in case there were any doubts about authenticity.
The Otravas messaged back quickly, agreeing to suspend hostilities pending confirmation of Rali's death.
Darius stopped digging. He tossed the shovel out of his hole and climbed out.
She got up to help him with the body. He waved her off.
“I will help you,” she said.
“I’m fine.”
“I will help you,” she repeated.
She walked over to his brother. Darius watched her go. He looked at his brother by the tree. He followed her.
They picked up Rali, carried him over to his grave, and set him down within. They did it as carefully as they could. It wasn’t easy. It took time to do it the right way.
Darius picked up the shovel. She put her hand on his chest.
“Rest,” she said.
“I’m fine.”
“Rest,” she repeated.
She took the shovel from him, and she began putting the fresh pile of dirt back in the ground.
He looked at her, then back at the grave. He lay down by it while she put the dirt back. He used the rucksack as a pillow.
The jungle hum
med as always. A breeze came across the valley of the ruins, carrying the scent of berries and wet leaves.
She glanced over at him as she dug. He was asleep.
✽✽✽
It was nearly midday when they finally awoke. Nadira pulled two scavenged meal pouches from her rucksack and offered one to him. He shook his head. They sat down by the grave. They stared at it in silence while Nadira ate her meal.
“I’ve never killed anyone before,” he said. “That tea, it...it made me into someone else for a little while. I didn’t like it.”
They had dragged the body of the sergeant into the bushes. There would be no burial for him, or for any of the others. The jungle would bury them in its own way.
“There’s no good way to feel about it, Darius. Just keep in mind that they forced us into this.” She finished her meal and put the empty pouch in her rucksack.
“Nadira, I...I keep seeing the look on his face as I...as I stabbed him.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “You did what you had to do to survive. If we hadn’t acted first, one of them would have plunged a knife into you, today or the next. Or they would have taken us off to...gods know where. That tea made you into what you needed to be.”
She checked the straps on the rucksack. “I took care of the debt, by the way.”
“The money we owe the Otravas? How?”
“I sent proof of death last night. They won’t bother us anymore.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
She wanted to tell him that things would take time. She wanted to tell him that she had lost family too, that she had taken lives, and that she knew what both felt like. But since she knew all that, she knew that there was really nothing she could tell him that would make it better right now. Because he needed time, more than anything else. Time, and someone to listen when he was ready to talk. He didn’t need someone talking at him.
She decided not to tell him that the Otravas would probably dig Rali’s body up to be sure. Maybe Darius had figured that out already anyway.
The Animus Gate (Book One of The Animus Trilogy) Page 10
