Star Angel: Prophecy

by David G. McDaniel

  Jess rose higher from Eriuses’ back, legs pinching his flanks, one hand curled in his mane, raising herself over his head to extend the other ...

  “HA!!” she hurled a wave that hit both approaching horses in the chest, knocking them tumbling to the side and skidding in different directions, twisting to gain their feet, neighing in fear as their muscular, mohawked riders fell free in a tangle of limbs.

  She felt Erius falter. Only a moment, but the bristling power of the blast she’d just hurled, combined with its shocking results, disturbed him.

  She reassured him and hunkered down as they flew past, leaving the Fist in the dust, on around the next corner and up the next avenue. Another Fist rider curved in from a new angle, taking up the chase. Apparently she was passing one of the groups that made it into the city. A search and destroy mission, and she was breaking their ranks. She turned and threw a strike behind; a simple swipe of her hand and the pursuing warrior was unseated and flung tumbling to the ground, horse falling off the pace to a trot.

  Erius bore on.

  Up ahead was an opening and she saw this one led to the plain beyond. Freedom from the enclosing city canyons. She urged Erius faster. Remarkably he had it in him. By then they were nearly flying.

  She wasn’t angry. Fury did not drive this mad dash for a confrontation with Cheops. Not totally. These were her people, all of them, the Fist and those from the Necrops alike, and she was tired of dealing with the BS and this was going to end now. This was not the welcome she’d expected, and when Galfar told her what she’d stepped into she was instantly done. There were enough problems; she wasn’t about to have this sort of drama going on here. Entire worlds were about to go to war and this, a bunch of overblown Mad Max wannabes versus a horde of mutants, was not going to happen. They were not going to have a pissant turf war and mess things up. Not where she intended to hide the Codes, the very future of everyone.

  With a lunge and a leap Erius cleared a wall of stone blocks scattered across the road, cleared the outskirts of the city and raced onto the plain beyond. And there, spread into the distance and formed up against the Necrops were … the Fist. Hundreds of them. Thousands. All of them, it looked like, and as she scanned her entire field of view she saw the nearest lines of Arclysses’ armies. Never having seen them in such concentration, ranged to either side and facing down the Fist, they looked hideously impressive in their own right.

  She raced on. Further toward the Fist, further from the mutant army which watched from the shadows of the city edge. Searching. She spotted Arclyss, unmistakable, alone, at the far end of the line, barely visible, glinting gold in the sunlight. Some sort of golden armor. He was astride a beast mightier than Erius, even from that distance Jess could tell, a lone figure between the two walls of bodies, doing what she could not be sure.

  But it wasn’t Arclyss she sought. Not yet. It was Cheops that started this. She continued riding hard, alone in the space between, Erius kicking out dust, chugging and snorting with the full-on exertion, running as fast as he could in the wide-open with no challenge, scanning the line of warriors and …

  Found him.

  Cheops. At the front, midway down, sitting on his horse and yelling something to his men.

  She angled for him.

  **

  “I still can’t believe this is where she was all that time,” Bianca looked over the world below, sitting comfortably in the captain’s chair aboard the Reaver. Nani was at her station, running checks, just like the last time they came to look for Jess.

  “Hamonhept was part of the Kel Combine,” said Nani, “back at the time of the Great Wars. A human world with a Kel governorship.” She spoke more for the benefit of Egg and Darvon, who had hitched a ride as expected, even as she reviewed the reams of information flowing in. No sign of Jess. “So many ruins,” she shook her head. “Whole cities, still standing. There are signs of what was, but no working technology. Everything is dead.

  “I can only imagine the legends the people of this world have for the relics.”

  “The mother planet is beautiful,” Egg commented, voice hushed. Bianca followed her gaze to the giant world. The blue Saturn dominated the view behind the world they orbited, icy rings sparkling in the sun. The world they hovered above, Hamonhept, was one of its moons, and her eyes kept rolling up to the gas giant like a magnet.

  For both Egg and her father, Darvon, this was a mind-blowing experience. Neither had been into space. And now they’d gone to a whole new world. In many ways, to Bianca, it seemed wrong. Something this monumental would normally have fallen to the best of the best, only those highly-qualified, screened and tested astronauts with the Right Stuff. And here was a dumpy, average guy and his daughter, aboard this one-of-a-kind ancient starship, among the first people of their entire planet to ever do so, and it felt like anyone else but them should’ve been on this ride.

  “I’ve got something,” said Nani. Everyone looked to her. Each of them had a beyond-personal interest in finding Jessica. To Bianca she was a best friend. For Darvon she was an angel. For Egg Jess seemed to be an idol, someone she aspired to be like. Nani had more respect for Jess than she did for anyone.

  To them all Jess was a hero.

  “Is it her?” Bianca got out of the chair.

  “It’s the radio,” said Nani, reviewing what she was seeing. Then confirmation: “It’s her.”

  Smiles around the bridge, beaming. Anticipation.

  Nani was back to her screen. “She hasn’t activated it. A faint signal at the far horizon. I’m resolving it.” Egg and Darvon stood near, watching Nani’s screens. “Locking a position,” she tapped inputs, looking up to the main forward screen as she did. An overlay popped up. Then: “It’s moving. It’s really weak. Has to be the standby system on the unit. Hold on.” She checked. “Coming from one of the city corpses.” She scanned side to side, searching. “There.” Everyone followed her gaze.

  On the main screen she’d put up an aerial image, what was clearly an overhead view of the remains of a city, a live feed, and as they watched she zoomed and zeroed in on a section of ground, directly on the outskirts. There were a lot of bodies gathered there, like a medieval army or something, faced off with more bodies near the city who looked to be defending.

  Nani drilled closer. Bringing the focus to a lone rider, racing across the plain between the opposing forces.

  It was Jess. Bianca was just able to make her out, the tiny top of her head, the color of her hair whipping behind as she galloped on what looked to be a really big horse, hilt of the sword over her shoulder, the glint of the armor Bianca remembered …

  “That’s her.”

  “What the hell is she doing?”

  She was riding a horse, charging between the two armies.

  “What is going on?”

  “How is she riding a horse? Why is she riding a horse?”

  None of what they were seeing made sense.

  “We should go to her.”

  “No,” Nani’s voice was firm. “Whatever she’s doing she’s doing it for a reason. We’re here if she needs us. There must be a reason she hasn’t tried to reach us. The communicator is working. She chose not to activate it.”

  “What if she called already?”

  Nani shook her head. “She knows to turn it on and wait. She wouldn’t be doing …” There was no doubt Jess was doing whatever she was doing deliberately. Very deliberately. There was no mistaking her rush. Nani inhaled. “We should watch just a little longer.”

  Bianca was worried.

  **

  Jess knocked a few of the Fist flying as she breached their ranks, but not many before they got the idea. Those in range must now surely recognize her. The girl, the one who fled their enforced hospitality, riding high upon her mighty steed as she charged by at a furious clip, challenging all reason. It was only after the impossible sight of her finally registered that they even began reacting at all. For an improbable stretch of time she simply galloped past them by
the dozens, wide eyes tracking her behind bearded faces, muscled bodies sitting in repose atop their horses and watching, motionless, having been in a prolonged standoff scant moments before and now this, a lone rider … failing, at first, to process what they were seeing.

  Once the spell was broken and the alarm was sounded their forward line surged into her path, no idea of her intention but no longer sitting by while this interloper rushed into their midst. Some concentrated bursts of energy and a few multi-colored bodies, red, black and yellow mohawks scattering, mighty beards, shouts of fear and surprise, and that same line of warriors was falling back, unsure how to respond but by then it was too late. In the seconds they had to formulate any retaliation she’d reached her objective.

  “Ho!” Cheops reared back on his horse as he saw who she was, as startled as the rest at the display of unholy magic he’d just witnessed. The wild girl, racing up on him at fantastic speed—showing no sign of slowing. Jess pulled back on Erius at the last moment, coming to a stop as Erius reared too, towering over Cheops and his mount. Both horses whinnied and dropped to all fours and Jess was facing him, Cheops just shorter than her on the back of his warhorse, she astride the titan.

  She swung a leg over and dismounted, hit the dirt hard, took two steps away from Erius and glared up at the Fist chieftain. Erius wanted her to stay atop him but her move was a deliberate show of boldness. Cheops must respond. They were being encircled by confused riders, an automatic reaction to protect their leader, horses whinnying and snorting as the Fist hustled to guard position. Cheopses’ eyes were locked to Jessica’s, looking down on her, still in his saddle and having no idea what to make of this.

  Jess stepped closer.

  Astride Erius she had the high ground. Now, even when Cheops got down—and he would get down and face her—when he got down she would be tiny before him. Little Jessica in her fancy armor, in a face-off with the mighty warlord.

  “Face me!” she demanded when he failed to move. It unstuck him and he rose from his saddle and jumped to the ground, stunned that he’d reacted to her command. Masking his shock, needing to restore some semblance of control, he started striding as soon as he hit, exaggerating his approach, stomping up to her in an effort to hide his hesitation.

  Before he could speak she shouted: “What is this!” It was a roar, and it snuffed the outrage in his throat. “You dare bring war to the Necrops!”

  His bluster returned quickly, inhaling for a shout of his own but she shut him down.

  “You’ve failed!” It was a girl’s voice, not a bellowing big booming voice like theirs, but it was so much more than that. Amplified, yes, but mostly not louder just permeating his skull. All their skulls. “All of you!” She glanced around. An impossible projection of intention rather than sound. Biting into them. They heard her, they felt her, and though Cheops had no idea what the hell she meant or how exactly he’d failed, he knew, all at once and quite convincingly, that he had.

  She kept up the intensity. “All of you!” She took a harder look at the bulky bodies surrounding her on horses, certain they were wondering why they sat there taking it. But she knew why. In that moment, in that place, she was indomitable.

  They took it because they had no choice.

  “I’m tired of failures!” Now she turned slowly in place, passing her gaze across each of them, knowing still more crowded behind those front rows. The entire Brotherhood in attendance, the open-air sounds of a battlefield on pause, in the center of that ring of massive bodies, horses and men … a singular battle of wills upon which all else rode. She brought her attention back to Cheops. Hulking, muscle-popping Cheops with the fiery red mohawk and a truly epic beard.

  He looked like such a baby.

  “I don’t blame you for the failures of your ancestors,” she eased a bit. Backing it down, though only slightly. “But I can, and I do, blame you for your own choices. That others failed before you is no excuse for you to continue that tradition. That you inherited failure, no excuse. No excuse! You are accountable and you’ve made a mockery of my legacy.”

  Cheops bristled; finally managing in his deep, powerful voice: “Your legacy?! Who are you to—”

  And she was in his face.

  “I am your priestess!”

  She kept having to tell people. It was driving her a little crazy.

  Cheops wavered, made no sense of her words at first, looking down on her, tip of that enormous beard just above her head. My priestess?! Tall, proud Cheops. Broad. Huge. She was the exact opposite of huge but he saw her, as if a curtain had been lifted, and she was more, so much more, and as he bore witness to the reality of that her words impinged. Hit, hard, and he heard them, and realized, in one crashing moment of despair, the true extent of his failings.

  It hit him like a bomb.

  His expression dropped and he went to one knee. Not even really doing it consciously; just because that deeper part of him told him to kneel, knowing he was in the presence of one who deserved his allegiance, and as that buried awareness made it to the surface, pushing aside foolish denial …

  He knew.

  He bowed his head.

  “My priestess,” his voice was low but she heard it, his eyes turned to the ground at her feet. “Forgive me.”

  **

  They were all just standing there, looking at the screen. Even Nani had stood and come over. Darvon too, right near the front of the bridge; Darvon, Bianca, Egg and Nani. Not believing what they were seeing.

  “How …” There was no good answer.

  “Did she use something?” Nani, of them all, was putting the most thought into what they’d seen. Trying hardest to understand. “Maybe something she got on Earth? Some sort of … device?”

  Bianca turned her head slowly side to side, eyes locked to the small figures at the center of the army. Jess, standing tall, the big red-headed barbarian kneeling before her.

  It was so, so weird.

  “There’s nothing on Earth that can do that. Not that I’ve ever heard of.” They’d all watched as Jess charged across the field of battle on that really big horse, then … she threw out her hand, again and again, each time knocking aside the mounted barbarians with invisible force.

  Like a Jedi blast or something.

  “And you didn’t give her anything?” Bianca asked Nani. “Not some little Kel device or something? Like a gravity gun or something?”

  Nani shook her head. “I don’t have anything like that.”

  Bianca took a deep breath. “We all did just see that, right?” She looked to each of them, their profiles, attention glued to what was unfolding far below.

  No one had any ideas.

  CHAPTER 42: ANATOMY OF A TRUCE

  Jess felt like she was marching a belligerent child back to its mother. Walking along beside and behind Cheops, pointing him toward the front of his own line of warriors ... that image of him as a baby would not be easily dismissed. He tromped along before her, passing the ranks of his muscled and overblown Brotherhood of the Fist, looking down from their horses on this strange procession, their leader being directed by the girl; Cheops simultaneously exhibiting signs of embarrassment, anger and respect. The respect, at least, carried with it no grudge. He knew her now, and though he was Lord of these lands and of the powerful Brotherhood, before any of that he was part of her creation and would do as she said. There was no shame in his obedience.

  “There,” she commanded. “Hold.” Cheops stopped at the spot indicated. They were relatively alone, now several dozen paces from the front of the line, facing down the opposing forces from the Necrops, ranged along the city’s edge several hundred yards away. Erius clomped along with them and stood near. Cheopses’ horse stayed back in the mass of warriors where he left it.

  Jess separated further, standing in the clear on the open, grassy plain. She searched the wastes for sign of Arclyss; found him far in the distance, unmistakable in his golden armor no matter the range, drew her sword with a tsssing and held it high ov
erhead. She pointed it to the sky, angling it side to side to catch the mid-day sun.

  Was the distance too great?

  She tried.

 

  No response.

 

  She turned the sword back and forth, making it glint. It felt as if she reached him. She could make him out; knew she was getting the words into his skull. Was he facing her?

  His mount reared, pivoted and was charging for her.

  She held the sword higher, stabbing at the sky. Cheops glowered beside her, seeing only that his nemesis was on his way. Arclyss moved fast, his mount far beyond anything else on the field, and when the great black giant was near enough to make out details, golden breastplate and gauntlets, armored skirt and greaves, Jess sheathed the sword and waited.

  Erius neighed and rose a few times from his front legs, shaking his head, making his presence known as the mighty beast and its towering rider bore down on them the last dozen yards and came to a thundering halt.

  Jess tried not to get too hung up on the creature Arclyss rode. It was an amazing animal, four-legged and like a horse but not at all, deep black with gleaming red eyes, giving forth a powerful snort as it took in the dust from the plain churned beneath its own hooves. A dragon horse, would’ve been a good way to put it, and as it churned to a halt Arclyss was already dismounting and striding toward them.

  Arclyss dwarfed even the great Cheops, muscle-bound and so full of bluster, no match for the physical specimen facing him. He stopped and held and the two stared hard at each other, though Jess knew Arclyss to be a man of reason. The driver of this confrontation, of this petty war, was exclusively Cheops.

  “This moment marks a truce,” she told them, wasting no time as she made eye contact with each. “Between you both.”

  Arclyss did not hesitate. “As you wish, my priestess.” No questions. No request for clarification.