Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  “The co­ordin­ates on Eri’s loc­ator are far from the Law­less’s home­land, deep within the moun­tains. We’re go­ing to have to trek through Soren’s Bog to skirt their sen­tinels. We’ll need to be alert.”

  “More than alert. We’ll have to tread like ghosts.” Ri­ley wrinkled his broad nose.

  Striver squeezed Eri’s shoulder. “We can do it.”

  He turned to the jungle and brought up his bow, re­leas­ing an ar­row trail­ing a rope be­hind it. The ar­row soared through the air and pierced the nearest tree. A pink-and-or­ange-feathered bird cawed in protest then fluttered into the ho­ri­zon. The rope swung pre­cari­ously, hanging in sus­pen­sion above the moat.

  Eri al­most choked. “We’re us­ing that?”

  “Ever heard of zip-lin­ing?”

  “No.”

  “What did they teach you aboard that mother ship?” Ri­ley asked as he tied a loop in a rope and se­cured it around his wrists.

  “Man­ners.” Eri wanted to add: More than you or your sis­ter have. But she re­membered Com­mander Grier’s or­ders to make friends.

  “I’ll go first.” Striver se­cured his own rope and stepped near the edge. He winked. “See you on the other side.”

  Be­fore she could reply, he jumped, slid­ing along the rope. The rope dipped and Eri’s stom­ach clenched as his boots skimmed the sur­face of the moat. Striver rose up again as he ap­proached the tree. He braced him­self with his legs out­stretched. Eri’s heart skipped as his feet hit the tree and he re­leased his rope, jump­ing to the forest floor. She sighed and shook her head. He made it look so easy.

  Ri­ley gave her a weary look. “Hav­ing second thoughts?”

  “No.” She couldn’t ima­gine stay­ing in the vil­lage while they went without her. Her team­mates would never trust her after what the Law­less did. They needed her.

  “Cour­age is found in the least likely of places.” Ri­ley looked as though he hu­mored her be­cause he had to. He offered her a rope loop. “Your turn next. Just don’t let go.”

  Her face must have blanched, be­cause Ri­ley shook his head. “You’re the one that wanted to come with us.”

  Eri tightened her lips, lest an un­friendly com­ment spit out. She grabbed the loop and wrapped it around the rope bridge, mak­ing sure it was se­cure. If only Aquaria could see me now.

  “Am I go­ing to have to push you, or are you go­ing to jump?”

  Her heart poun­ded against her rib­cage. “I’m go­ing to jump. Just give me a sec.”

  She breathed in and out, watch­ing Striver wave at her from across the moat. She trus­ted him. For some strange reason, she knew he’d do everything in his power to keep her from harm. Was it his way with every­one? He did seem like a hero in a messed-up world.

  Her boot toes poked out from the ledge, thin air between both feet. She teetered for­ward, ver­tigo clutch­ing her stom­ach. Now or never.

  Eri jumped, the air whoosh­ing around her as she slid down the length of the rope. The jungle blurred, noth­ing ex­ist­ing ex­cept the rope in her fin­ger­tips and the ad­ren­aline ra­cing through her veins. Fear and ex­hil­ar­a­tion hit her in a rush. The moat came up at her in a glassy black slate, steal­ing her breath away. She kicked her feet, ready to send those leech­ers back to the wa­tery depths were they came from. She didn’t weigh as much as Striver, so her feet cleared the moat with room to spare. Re­gain­ing her breath, she picked up her legs, pre­par­ing for the on­com­ing tree. The arc flattened, slow­ing her des­cent. Her feet touched the tree, and she bounced off. She hung above the forest floor, swinging like a pen­du­lum.

  “Way to go, Eri!” Striver called from be­low her, bring­ing her back to real­ity.

  Eri looked up the rope. The mono­lithic wall cast a shadow over her head, the con­crete covered in wispy moss and lichen. I can’t be­lieve I did that. Two days ago I sat in my bubble of­fice, typ­ing old lan­guages into my min­is­creen.

  Striver stood be­low her with both hands raised. His fin­gers wiggled in the air. “Jump!”

  She re­leased her hold on the rope and fell. The ground came up fast, knock­ing the air out of her as she dropped and rolled onto her back.

  Striver knelt be­side her, his face hov­er­ing over hers. Worry wrinkled his an­gu­lar fea­tures. “You all right?”

  “Yeah. Now I know what it feels like to be a bird.”

  His face softened. “Or to be Phoenix.” Striver stood and helped her up.

  She dus­ted leaves off of her tu­nic. “Fright­en­ing.” She gave him a mis­chiev­ous tweak of her eye­brow. “But fun.”

  He smiled and looked away, as if de­cid­ing whether or not to tell her some­thing. “He did fly you over the wall earlier last night when you were out.”

  Eri paused in mid swipe. “He did what?”

  “Flew you over the wall. We would have needed a pul­ley sys­tem to lift you back up. Too bad you don’t re­mem­ber that, huh?”

  Think­ing about Phoenix’s branch­like fin­gers, Eri de­cided she’d rather for­get.

  Ri­ley fol­lowed, ca­reer­ing through the trees over the moat. He landed, giv­ing her a nod. Either he’d run out of mock­ing com­ments about her lack of ex­per­i­ence, or by zip-lin­ing she’d earned a small amount of his re­spect.

  “Come on.” Striver picked up his back­pack. “We don’t want to waste the day­light.”

  Eri didn’t ar­gue. Every second her team lay in the Law­less’s clutches felt like a weight on her heart. She fol­lowed him into the jungle feel­ing like a hero for the first time in her life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Campfire Tales

  “What do you want with us?” The light-haired pris­oner squirmed un­til he could sit up­right and stare Snipe down. His face was broad, his dark gaze calm and cal­cu­lat­ing des­pite his dire pre­dic­a­ment.

  Snipe raised his bow at the man. “Not for me to de­cide. One more ques­tion and I’ll put an ar­row in your leg.”

  Weaver re­mained si­lent, try­ing not to catch the man’s at­ten­tion. Pity and guilt mingled in his stom­ach. He felt bad for the pris­on­ers, but at the same time, mis­trust simmered in his mind. Since they spoke Eng­lish, Jolt might be right about them be­ing from a colony ship and com­ing to steal their world. If so, the pir­ates settled here first, and that should mean the planet was theirs, a uni­ver­sal rule in an oth­er­wise law­less land.

  Snipe walked over to his side of the cave and put down his bow. In a second, he held his blade in­stead, sharpen­ing it on the groove in the rock. Weaver watched from the corner of his eye, won­der­ing which weapon the body­guard favored.

  The hefty wo­man rolled over, an­ger flash­ing on her face when she no­ticed her bind­ings.

  The blond man whispered to her, and Weaver listened care­fully. “Don’t ask ques­tions. Don’t move.”

  “Where are we?” She flicked her head around the room, and her single braid whipped back against her bald skull.

  “Some sort of cave. They’ve sent someone to get their leader.”

  Her eyes nar­rowed, beady and in­tense. “Do you have a plan to get us out of this?”

  “I left Eri with the ship and told her to no­tify the com­mander. She’ll get us help.”

  She snarled. “The lin­guist. You’ve got to be kid­ding. She can’t even zip her boots.”

  “She’ll bring help. I know she will.”

  “Enough.” Snipe leapt up and walked in between them, flash­ing his blade. “I don’t want any whispered plans of es­cape. It’s fu­tile. You’re a hun­dred meters into a moun­tain sur­roun­ded by dense jungle and thou­sands of pir­ates. There’s no way out. No one’s com­ing to get you ex­cept our leader, and I know for a fact he won’t let you go.”

  Weaver stopped listen­ing, turn­ing back to the an­cient sym­bols sur­round­ing the golden pool. A lin­guist?

  Jolt had the laser guns, and there was noth­ing he
could do about it. No way could he get them back by him­self. The golden li­quid was his only bar­gain­ing chip.

  Power em­an­ated from the pool. The en­ergy source tingled every bone in his body, vi­brat­ing to a pitch his ears couldn’t quite hear, prom­ising him great­ness. He just needed to fig­ure out how to har­ness it. Then, the weapons would be a con­sol­a­tion prize. Maybe he’d have to be­friend these people, get their lin­guist to de­cipher the hiero­glyphs. And take the credit him­self. They were pris­on­ers, so he could bar­gain with them, maybe even do a pris­oner ex­change. Where did they say she was? At the ship?

  Weaver’s gaze fol­lowed Snipe as he took his seat against the cav­ern wall. First, he had to get past Jolt’s most men­acing body­guard.

  Snipe glanced up and caught him star­ing. “Got a prob­lem, Weasel?”

  “No.” Weaver kept his tone light, laugh­ing in­wardly. I’m only plot­ting how to take over the world.

  …

  Doubts crept in as Striver trekked through the grow­ing muck lead­ing into Soren’s Bog. Sure, they’d skir­ted every sen­tinel within ten kilo­met­ers, but the le­gend of Soren’s dis­ap­pear­ance still hol­lowed him out, ever since his friends had whispered the tale of tragedy over the em­bers of their camp­fire as little boys. The mist flowed in a thick car­pet up to their thighs, and the trees drooped in mossy cur­tains into the sludge. Everything dripped, and the ran­dom plink-plunks made it seem like someone fol­lowed you from be­hind. The whole place oozed creep­i­ness.

  Eri splashed be­hind him, her space boots pro­tect­ing her bet­ter than their leather foot­wear. He en­vied her, even if she wore a byproduct of the tech­no­logy he’d shunned. If only she’d learn how to walk in them. An over­whelm­ing urge to pro­tect her surged in­side him, and he res­isted again and again the im­pulse to of­fer his hand. Every time he touched her, a spark ig­nited in his chest, and he feared if he re­mained too close to her, his heart would catch on fire—one he couldn’t con­trol.

  She stumbled for­ward and caught her­self on a tree be­fore her face could hit the wa­ter. She had a smudge on her left cheek, and his fin­gers itched to touch her fair skin and wipe it away.

  “No bogs in space?” Ri­ley passed her with a grin. His mock­ing ir­rit­ated Striver, but he held his tongue. He had to stay on good terms with the man if they were to ac­com­plish this mis­sion to­gether. Con­stantly de­fend­ing the in­vader wasn’t the most dip­lo­matic tac­tic, as much as he wanted to be the shin­ing hero who came to her aid. Be­sides, as her per­son­al­ity un­fol­ded, he no­ticed a good dose of spunk in her, along with a stub­born streak that made her all the more in­ter­est­ing. Eri had the guts to de­fend her­self.

  Pulling her­self back up, she snorted. “No. Space is a whole lot of noth­ing. Be­sides, the grav­ity is stronger here, and I’m not used to walk­ing on any­thing that isn’t made out of some sort of chrome.”

  Ri­ley laughed. “Some con­quer­ing party.”

  “I was on an ex­plor­at­ory mis­sion,” Eri spat back.

  “That’s why you came with so many laser guns?”

  “The guns were for our pro­tec­tion.” She laughed and muttered un­der her breath, “Some pro­tec­tion they were.”

  Striver caught her eye and flashed an apo­lo­getic smile. He kept his gaze mov­ing be­fore she mes­mer­ized him again, look­ing to Ri­ley in­stead. “Come on, we need to reach the moun­tains by night­fall or we’ll be sleep­ing on a wa­ter bed.”

  Eri nod­ded, pick­ing up a walk­ing stick she’d found on a mossy in­cline. “Why’s it called Soren’s Bog any­way?”

  Ri­ley chuckled with a sin­is­ter un­der­tone. “Do you think we should tell her?”

  Striver turned around and Eri glared at him as if he’d haunted the bog him­self. Sigh­ing, he plowed ahead. “There’s a le­gend in our vil­lage about a man named Soren. A cen­tury ago, he led a hunt­ing party into this bog, track­ing a herd of swamp boars. After sev­eral nights, his men were drenched and wanted to go home, but he’d had a dream of trap­ping the biggest swamp boar the vil­lage had ever seen.”

  Striver shrugged, try­ing to dis­miss the man’s ir­ra­tional goal, even though he’d had sim­ilar dreams of his own when he was a teen. “I don’t know if he was try­ing to prove some­thing, or maybe to im­press a wo­man in the vil­lage. Whatever the case, Soren wouldn’t give up. His hunt­ing party sloshed through the muck for days track­ing the great boar. They ran out of sup­plies and got lost.”

  “What happened to them?” With the walk­ing stick, Eri caught up to him, close enough to splash more wa­ter on his pants.

  Striver didn’t care. He watched her curls bob with each step. Some­how, in all this muck and gloom, her hair seemed even brighter. “Sup­posedly they came upon this pool of golden li­quid, welling up from a spring deep within the bog. They walked right in, the li­quid seep­ing around their boots and crawl­ing up their legs. They star­ted to have strange day­dreams, memor­ies of the past. Some of the older men had lost fam­ily mem­bers—wives and chil­dren—and they were able to re­live happy times again and again. They be­came ob­sessed and didn’t want to leave.”

  Eri grabbed his arm. “Wait a second. How do you know all this if they all stayed in the bog?”

  Striver smiled. “One of the younger men, a guy named Blue from the Law­less lands, had no fam­ily, no memor­ies he wanted to re­live. He was able to crawl out of the li­quid and found his way back home, al­most starved to death.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was fine. Grew up in our vil­lage, had a fam­ily of his own. In fact, isn’t he re­lated to you, Ri­ley?”

  Ri­ley gave him a sar­castic smile. “Ha. Ha.”

  Striver turned to Eri. She’d smiled at his joke, and it made him feel so good to make her happy. “But the oth­ers were never found, nor was the golden li­quid. The vil­lage coun­cil sent out search parties for months, but none of them was ever seen again.”

  Ri­ley chimed in as he slung out his knife, cut­ting through a cur­tain of hanging moss. “They say Soren’s ghost still roams this bog look­ing for the swamp boar he was destined to kill. If you’re not care­ful, he’ll mis­take you for the boar, and one of his ar­rows will go right through your heart.”

  “Enough, Ri­ley.” Striver gave Eri a con­sol­at­ory smile and shook his head. “That last part is just Ri­ley’s boar drop­pings.”

  Eri waved it off. “That’s fine. You don’t think I’ve heard my fair share of ghost stor­ies aboard the Her­it­age?”

  Ri­ley scoffed. “I bet they’re noth­ing com­pared to Soren’s Bog.”

  Eri glared at him. “Much scar­ier, ac­tu­ally.”

  “Oh yeah? Tell me the scar­i­est one.”

  Striver threw up his arms. Here they were, bick­er­ing like chil­dren, when both tribes had so much to learn about each other. If Eri’s people did col­on­ize Refuge, how would his tribe ever get along with theirs?

  Eri glanced over at him and raised one slender eye­brow. He shrugged. “Go ahead. We have all day.” Be­sides, he was in­ter­ested in her life on the ship, and telling stor­ies kept their minds off the sludge and kept them walk­ing.

  She hopped onto a mossy ledge and walked one foot in front of the other, her arms bal­an­cing with the walk­ing stick.

  “When someone dies on the ship, we eject their body into space in a small nan­ofiber coffin. They float for etern­ity into the un­known, drift­ing.”

  The ledge ended and she jumped back into the swamp muck, splash­ing Ri­ley’s boots. “A whole gen­er­a­tion be­fore mine, there was one fam­ily on the Her­it­age who lost their little girl, Lynex, to some rare dis­ease. The com­puter tries to weed out such ge­netic de­form­it­ies, match­ing the best pairs of people to cre­ate dur­able chil­dren who will live long, fruit­ful lives. But every so of­ten, the cal­cu­la­tions go wrong, and someone is born with
a ge­netic weak­ness.”

  “Lifemate pair­ing. How ut­terly hideous.” Ri­ley threw a rock and it skimmed across the wa­ter.

  Striver put up his hand. “Enough, Ri­ley; let her tell the story.”

  Eri waited un­til the waves in the sur­face stilled, her gaze far off, like she saw it hap­pen­ing in her mind. “This fam­ily didn’t want their little girl ejec­ted into deep space. So, be­fore the fu­neral, they switched the coffins and hid Lynex’s body in their fam­ily unit. The au­thor­it­ies ejec­ted an empty coffin into space.”

  “That’s not very scary.”

  Eri raised her eye­brows taunt­ingly. “The scary part is com­ing.”

  Ri­ley fur­rowed his brow and took an­other swing at the next cur­tain of moss. “I’ll make sure to strap my boots on tighter.”

  She ig­nored him, kick­ing away a vine float­ing in the muck. “They hid her body in her sleep pod and kept the air­tight con­tainer closed to pre­serve her. One night, when they checked on her, the pod was empty. When they opened the lid, they saw scratch marks on the in­side.”

  Eri walked over to Ri­ley and scratched his arm with her nails. To Striver’s sur­prise, he re­coiled.

  Laugh­ing, she walked back to Striver’s side. “Any­way, they say her ghost haunts the decks at night, her mal­formed face scar­ing even the har­di­est of men. They say she can ma­nip­u­late tech­no­logy, make your loc­ator turn off like you’re dead, shut off the lights, any­thing to tease people.”

  A shiver jol­ted up Striver’s spine. Her story chilled and im­pressed him at the same time. “That’s pretty scary, Eri.”

  “That’s not all. One night when my sis­ter and I played hide-and-seek in the aban­doned cor­ridors of the ship, I got lost. The lights flickered off, and I heard a scratch­ing noise com­ing from be­hind me. At first I thought it could have been mice that had es­caped the biod­ome. Then, as I listened harder, I heard a sniffle, like from some little kid’s nose.”

  Striver was hooked. “Did you turn around?”