by Keri Arthur
As more dust flew skyward, those screams sounded again, only this time, they were much, much closer.
A heartbeat later, three gray-skinned creatures of nightmare erupted from the ground in front of me.
Seven
I cursed and ran backward down the street, not wanting to turn away from them and hoping like hell I didn’t crash into a building or fall over rubble. I exchanged the knife for the other blaster and once again, rained metal hell down on them. It made no more difference now than it had before.
They gave chase, their screams of fury high-pitched and grating and unlike anything I’d ever heard before. No human throat could make a sound like that, but then, the only commonality these things had with humans was the fact they used weapons and were upright beings that ran on two legs rather than four.
The nearest one raised a thick metal blade and slashed it toward me. I jumped back and instinctively sucked in my gut. The blade’s sharp tip cut easily through the layers of armor and clothes, but I had no idea if it had also sliced skin—and no time to find out. I kept firing, kept running, and the constant barrage finally began to take a toll on the nearest creature. The armor plating covering its chest area was cracked, and a metallic—almost acidic—scent stained the air as black liquid seeped down its torso.
Donal appeared behind them, rifle raised. I immediately threw myself into the nearest building then rolled upright and raised the blasters in readiness. As the creatures slid to a halt and black dust plumed into the air, Donal unleashed on the three of them.
Blood, gore, and brain matter flew as the back of their heads exploded. They went down hard and didn’t move.
For several minutes, neither could I.
I just kept my guns aimed at the creatures and sucked in air, trying to ease the burning in my lungs and the quivering in my limbs. The bipeds didn’t move, and they certainly didn’t come back to life as some insane part of me half feared. After a moment, I lowered my guns and walked back to the doorway.
“Where the fuck did those things from?” Donal scanned me critically, his gaze narrowing. “How bad is that wound?”
“From the soil about ten feet in front of me, and I have no idea.” I reclipped my blasters and then carefully unlatched the breastplate and peeled away the undershirt. A thin red line stretched across my stomach, but it wasn’t very deep. I’d obviously sucked it in at exactly the right moment. “It’s nothing major.”
“Good, but given the dust, I’d seal it to keep it clean.”
I nodded and immediately shucked off the pack to get the medikit. He knelt next to the biped closest to me and rolled it over. Its slightly bulbous, overly large eyes sat either side of the V-shaped armored plate that started at the top of its forehead and ran down the center of its elongated face. At the end of this, there was a small snout and under it a mouth. Its large ears sat on top of its head and were leaf-shaped.
I quickly cleaned and sealed the wound then packed the kit away again. “Have you ever seen anything like these before?”
He shook his head. “Never. And there was certainly no mention of them in any of the old history books that I’ve read, though the Skaran are mentioned plenty.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who spends much time in dusty old archives.”
His smile was brief but bright. “I’m not, which is why my father used it as a form of punishment.”
I snorted softly. “Do you think they’re related to the Skaran?”
“It’s possible, but I personally doubt it. They’re physiology is very different, and, at a guess, I’d say these bipeds are nocturnal.”
Which would explain why their eyes were so large. “The Skaran hunt at night.”
“Mostly in the warmer months, and mainly because it’s cooler. They’re heavily coated, remember.”
I nodded and studied the three bodies for a second. “Given all the armor plating on these things, we’re damn lucky to have taken them down. The blasters certainly weren’t—in any way—effective on them.”
“Which is why I used the pulse rifle and aimed at the back or sides of their heads—there’s no plating there.” He stood and looked around. “I think we’d better bury them and then get moving.”
“Where to, though? Aside from these things, this city appears deserted.”
“Yes, but I don’t think they came from here—not if the wind is to be believed.”
“You’re hearing her again?”
“Only faintly, which is why I didn’t call on her to help.” His gaze came to mine, his expression grim. “We need to know if we’re dealing with more than armored bipeds, or if these creatures have further plans that could harm the city.”
“I’m not entirely sure I want to discover the latter.” I frowned. “If they’re nocturnal, their main city might be underground.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He studied the horizon for a second. “Given the air was blocked near the vent that held the sparks and also at the volcano, I think that’s where we need to go next.”
“It’s too far—and likely too dangerous—to walk there.” Not to mention the fact we didn’t have the supplies to do so. “And I’m not sure we can afford the toll on your strength.”
“It won’t take long to get there via the wind, and then we can rest.”
I hesitated. In truth, we really did need answers, and fast. The tunnel wasn’t all that far from Skaran lands and while I had no doubt they’d fight to the death against the bipeds, I also suspected they’d have as little defense against magic as us—if that’s what we were dealing with. As yet, nothing was certain, especially given the bipeds who’d attacked us certainly hadn’t used it.
“Do you want to report to the captain?” he added. “I’ll get rid of these bodies.”
He dragged them into the nearest building. Once I’d made our report, I helped shift rocks across the door to stop a casual glance from seeing what lay inside. Whether it was enough to stop the bipeds from smelling the death and decay, I didn’t know and didn’t really care. I was covered in sweat, and every muscle in my body ached. Even if we could have done more, I simply didn’t have the energy.
But the dawn had shifted to full sun and the day was far from over for us.
I wearily picked up my pack and slung it over my back. “How far will we have to walk before you can use the wind?”
His shrug had strips of sweat-dampened hair falling into his eyes. He brushed them away and then said, amusement lightly creasing the corners of his eyes, “Remind me to buy you better hair clasps when all this is done. This one is next to useless.”
“Aside from the fact my short hair makes them redundant, they weren't designed to control a mane like yours.” I turned and moved out, wanting to get away from the dead as quickly as possible. “Although I have to ask—why do you highlanders have such long hair in the first place? Isn’t it dangerous in a battle situation?”
“Long hair is considered a sign of virility amongst my people.” He fell in step beside me. “And it's not like we've actually faced a serious battle situation for centuries.”
“What about the Skaran?”
“They’re too busy trying to rip you apart to grab a hair tail. If it is grabbed, it’s easily sliced off.”
“That’s presuming you have the time to draw a knife.”
“Indeed.” His grin flashed again. “But Skaran are not the only ones who can move at speed when necessary.”
We continued on in silence. The air soon spun around us though the earth remained mute—dead. Donal stopped and held out his hand. I twined my fingers through his and stepped close. Within seconds, we were wrapped in gossamer clouds and being swept sideways.
It didn't take long to reach the broken volcano. This time, though, the clouds didn't dissipate, even when we were delivered safely onto the ground—and that made me wonder what dangers lurked beyond the gauzy veil that protected us.
I stepped back, my gaze sweeping Donal critically. Though sweat ran freely down his
face, his breathing wasn't as harsh as it had been previously. For whatever reason, moving the two of us hadn't affected him as badly this time, even though the distance we'd traveled was probably greater.
“This way, Princess.”
Though his voice was little more than a murmur, his words nevertheless hung in the air, as if waiting for someone to hear them—someone other than me. I shivered and rubbed my arms. The stone under my feet was flat, black, and glass smooth. I had no idea if it was natural or not, and the earth's voice remained dead. As she’d warned, I wouldn’t be able to call on her for help if it became necessary.
The ground soon began to slope sharply upward, losing much of its smoothness in the process. After a few more minutes, the light of day gave way to shadows. Donal stopped and the gossamer cloud finally dissipated. I halted beside him and looked around. We were in a cave—a small, almost triangular-shaped one that ran with water as dark as the walls and stunk of foul eggs.
I swung back to the light, but there was nothing to see except blue sky. I glanced back at Donal. “Where are we?”
“In a cave close to the point where the lava breached the cone.”
I frowned. “Why are we here rather than in the cone itself?”
“Because this is as far as the wind could take us—we're just below the line of whatever is impeding her and, I presume, the earth.”
“The earth's voice was extinguished at the beginnings of those ruins and that hasn’t changed.”
“Then let’s hope we’re not discovered, or we’ll be in deep trouble.”
He swung off his pack and walked up the slope to the cave's rear. While the entire lower section ran with little streams of water, the main source of all that moisture was a natural fissure that divided a five-foot-high ledge at the back of the cave.
I threw my pack onto the ground beside his and then rolled my shoulders. It didn't help a whole lot with the ache but then, nothing short of a long hot bath and several days of rest would achieve that—and both were unlikely to come my way in the near future. “I wonder why the deadness and restrictions affects the earth more than air?”
“Maybe the restricting magic is more earth-based.” He unhooked his bedroll. “Rest, Princess. It could be a while before we get the chance to do so again.”
I glanced at him sharply. “Is that the wind’s judgment, or yours?”
“Both.”
“Not what I wanted to hear.”
“If I’d lied, would it have made you feel any better?”
“Probably not.” A smile touched my lips. “And I wouldn’t have believed you even if you had.”
He made an aggrieved sound. “It’s a sad state of affairs when a man’s word is trusted so little.”
“It’s not so much a matter of trust,” I replied, though the gods only knew I had reasons enough not to trust the word of any man or woman ever again. “But rather the fact your eyes give you away when you’re less than honest.”
He raised an eyebrow. “My many wins at the betting tables would refute that statement.”
“Maybe I’m just a little more perceptive than those who throw their cash in your direction.”
“I think that’s the more likely answer.” He flicked his bedroll out. “In fact, I think you’re probably the most perceptive person I’ve ever met.”
I snorted. “Then you obviously haven’t met many people.”
“Oh, I have—which is why I’m so certain you notice many more things than you’d ever admit, Princess.”
“And I think you’re insane.”
His grin flashed, bright in the shadows. “That is also totally possible. After all, I am a Westal Wildman.”
I snorted again. As he double-tapped his halo to report to the captain, I spread my bedroll out and then grabbed some rations—and promptly decided paper probably had more taste.
The stretching silence had me looking at him, eyebrows raised in question.
“It looks like we’re beyond the range of the halos.” He grimaced. “Which isn’t surprising, really, given even these ones were never designed to bridge such a distance.”
“No, but it’s still damn annoying.” If only because if we couldn’t pass on any information about whatever we found tonight.
He climbed into his bedroll and settled down. After a moment, I did the same. It said a lot about my weariness that even though this was the first time in twelve years I was without direct contact with the earth, I fell asleep within seconds.
I woke abruptly hours later, my pulse racing so hard it felt like my heart was going to leap out of my chest. For several seconds, I simply lay there, listening to Donal's soft snoring and wondering what the hell had woken me. The deeper darkness of night gathered within the cave and, in the skies beyond its entrance, flags of orange and purple could be seen. I had no sense of movement—either in the cave or beyond it. No sense that anything or anyone was approaching. If there had been, surely the stirring air would have woken Donal rather than me.
I frowned and drew in a deep breath, sorting through the various scents within it, trying to find anything out of the ordinary. The foul scent of rotten eggs remained, but this time it was accompanied by the wildness of a storm. Thunder rumbled, a distant sound that held the threat of violence.
But it wasn't the storm that had woken me. Divona was a city living on the edge of the sea, and violent storms were something we were all well used to.
I pushed out of the bedroll and walked across to the cave's entrance. Donal almost immediately said, “What's wrong?”
“I don't know. Something.”
“The wind mentions no threat.”
He climbed out of his bedroll and joined me near the entrance. The land stretched out far below us, mile upon mile of black emptiness. Nothing moved in that forsaken thread of land—nothing we could see, anyway.
I carefully eased past the cave's entrance. The path we'd followed into this place continued on for a good one hundred feet or so then did a sharp left. It was empty as the land below, so I stepped out and looked up. What almost looked like a frozen black wave arched high above us and stopped me from seeing what was going on beyond it.
I glanced back at Donal. “The wind still sees no threat?”
“Indeed—but if one is approaching from up top, then she wouldn't, given the barrier begins at that wave.” He squeezed past me and then moved further up the narrow ledge. “There's no sign of movement.”
“Would we see it even if there was?” I certainly hadn’t seen the bipeds hiding in the ground until I’d all but stepped on them.
“Probably not—” He stopped and cocked his head sideways. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” I moved from under the black stone wave and stopped beside him. Only then did I hear it—a slow, bass-heavy beat.
“Is that a drum?”
“Sounds like it. And where's there's a drum, there's a drummer.” He looked down at me. “I think we'd better go investigate.”
“Well, we didn't come all this way not to.”
I spun and hurried back into the cave. After reattaching the bedroll, I slung on the backpack and walked back out, this time following Donal. The path zigzagged up the mountain—the cave may have been under the lip of the breach, but that lip was a long one.
The crater’s side grew steeper, rockier, and the ground less stable. Much of the path crumbled under our weight, sending mini slides of soil and stone leaping over the edge into nothingness.
The drumbeat got louder—closer. Donal motioned me to stop, and then edged past a jagged rock that jutted across the path and disappeared from sight. I shifted from one foot to the other, fighting the urge to ignore his order and go see what might lie beyond that rock.
After a moment, he reappeared and motioned me forward. I dug my fingers into small crevices and slowly edged around the rock, battling gravity and the weight of the backpack, both of which seemed determined to pull me over the edge into nothingness.
Donal clasped my w
rist midway around and steadied me as I stepped onto the wide, shelf-like area that lay between two broken sections of cone’s wall. The edge lay twenty feet away; there was nothing and no one to be seen beyond it other than the opposite wall of the circular crater—a wall that time and weather had severely eroded. There wasn’t anything to even suggest life had ever existed within the walls of the volcano.
Nothing, that was, except that steadily beating drum.
“Did you look over the edge to see what’s further down?”
“I can't.” His voice was grim. “There's a barrier of some sort stopping me.”
I studied the area between the edge and us but couldn’t see said barrier or even any obvious sign of magic. But then, why would I? It wasn’t like I had any familiarity with the stuff. “Wonder why we were able to move through the barrier that stopped the wind investigating the vents but not this one?”
“Not a question I can answer, given my decided lack of knowledge when it comes to magic,” he replied. “But it does at least confirm someone around here is capable of it. Whether it’s our armored attackers or perhaps even a lingering remnant of a bygone era is what we now need to uncover.”
“I wouldn't have thought barrier magic would linger for centuries, especially in an area as unstable as this.”
“I guess it would depend on what it was leashed to. The King’s Sword survives, after all, and it holds magic, does it not?”
“Yes, but it’s not at the mercy of unstable ground.” Just an unstable mind. “I have no idea what it actually does, though. I certainly never felt anything more than the earth power in the few minutes I held it. Where did you hit the barrier?”
“The midpoint between the crater's edge and here.”
“It blocks the entire path?”
“Yes.” He glanced at me, amusement creasing the corners of his eyes. “And before you ask, I can neither crawl under nor climb over it. I did attempt both options.”
“Which would have been a very amusing sight. Shame I missed it.”
I cautiously walked forward. As I neared the midway point, warmth flared against my thigh—one that grew hotter with every step. The glass knife had come to life, and was now throwing off a light so bright it made the leather sheath glow gold. I hesitated and then wrapped my fingers around the hilt. It didn’t burn, although the fierce light crawled across my hand and totally enclosed it. I drew the knife free.
