Unlit

by Keri Arthur

  I touched the earwig. “Base, this is Nightwatch eight-three. We’re going to need assistance.”

  “The captain said we’ve no units close enough to render any. Alter course and head for the Blacklake encampment. He’ll order them to fall out.” Jeni paused. “Be aware that we’re picking up secondary movement at twenty-two miles out from your position. They appear to be shadowing you.”

  “How big a sleuth?”

  “We’re not entirely sure it’s Adlin. The readings aren’t quite right.”

  “How can the readings not be right? It’s either Adlin or wildebeest. Nothing else lives in this godforsaken place.”

  “We’re getting tech to check out whether it’s a fault or not. But it’s not them you have to worry about right now.”

  Something I didn’t need reminding of. “Tell Blacklake if they don’t hurry, we’re going to be Adlin meat.”

  “ETA estimates are twenty minutes.”

  Which meant they were going to be about ten minutes too late to prevent a running battle happening between the Adlin and us. Fear rose, swift and sharp, twisting my gut and momentarily snatching my breath. But that was okay; fear could be controlled and channeled. It could make you sharper, more alert, more dangerous. Every single Night or Daywatch officer was taught that, and every single one of us had learned the truth of it.

  But it was a truth I wasn’t looking forward to once again confirming. Not when I was about to go into battle alone.

  “Tell them to get here faster. Oh, and Base? I have the woman’s name for you—Saska.”

  “No surname?”

  “No, but I think she’s an air witch.”

  “We’ll check if any have been reported missing.”

  “Thanks. Eight-three out.”

  I punched in the Blacklake coordinates, turned off the sensor’s audible warning, and then reached for both gut busters. The scooter did a sharp right turn and began speeding away from the Adlin. I knew it really wouldn’t make all that much difference. I could see—and hear—them now.

  At least the wind was no longer battering the scooter but had instead shifted behind us, seeming to urge us on to greater speeds. But we were already at full tilt.

  It definitely wasn’t going to be enough.

  If the scent of fear coming from behind me was anything to go by, Saska was also aware of it. But that fear apparently wasn’t strong enough to unleash her abilities, to reach out for the air and the storms and fling them at the Adlin. I wondered what had happened to her to cause such a cataclysmic breach between mind and abilities, but it was a thought that swiftly died as a long, drawn-out roar reached above the noise of the screaming engines.

  “Can’t this metal bucket go any faster?” Saska said, voice tight.

  “Yeah, but only if I throw your ass out of it.”

  “You won’t… will you?”

  “As tempting as it might become, no, I won’t.”

  The Adlin were almost upon us. Tension crawled up my spine and sweat broke out across my brow. I didn’t wipe it away, didn’t move. I just waited.

  The noise behind us died.

  Here they come….

  The scooter lurched to the right as one of them cannoned into it, then bounced, briefly hitting the soil as another jumped on top. Claws raked roof, tearing into but not breaking through the metal skin. Saska screamed, the sound deafening in the small cabin.

  “That’s not helping,” I said, voice harsh. “So for freedom’s sake, shut up and get as low down as you can.”

  I raised a gut buster as she obeyed, but didn’t immediately fire. I wouldn’t—not until those claws broke through. As long as the scooter remained intact, we had a chance. A slim one, but I’d take that any day over none.

  Another hit sent the scooter sliding sideways. I glanced to the left and saw four Adlin, teeth bared and eyes bloody with rage and hunger, running beside us. Three more appeared to our right. Eight all told.

  May the gods of earth and air help us….

  Another thump on the roof. The scooter dipped under the weight, and the engine’s screams became high-pitched as it struggled to maintain speed and height under the additional weight.

  A third thump, one that made the metal echo. Not another Adlin this time, but rather a blow. The roof dented, then several claws pierced the metal and began peeling it back. I fired both gut busters. The boom was deafening in the confines of the cabin, but the metal pellets did their job, tearing through the roof and into the Adlin above us. They screamed but weren’t dislodged. Their claws bit deeper into the shredded metal; I fired again. One of them fell and the scooter surged forward.

  It still wasn’t enough.

  A thick, hairy arm slashed down through the gap in the roof. Claws wrapped around the gun in my left hand, tearing into my skin in the process. Pain reverberated through me as blood flowed down my arm and fingers. I fired the other gun. There was a roar in response and fluid dripped into the cabin—fluid that was black and rancid-smelling. But despite its injuries, the Adlin wasn’t letting me go. Instead, it began tugging me upward, trying to pull me free from the craft. All that held me in position was the belt around my waist.

  I swore, reached across my body for the knife, and then slashed at the Adlin’s arm. The glass blade bit deep, severing skin, muscle, and bone with ease, and suddenly I was free. As the Adlin’s arm dropped to the scooter’s floor and black blood began to pulse all over me, I grabbed the rifle and fired upwards. The Adlin’s entire head exploded and his body tipped sideways.

  The minute his weight slid from the roof, the scooter surged forward. Hope rippled through me, but a quick look either side soon killed it. The Adlin were still running beside us, although I could only see four of them now. Even as I wondered what the others were up to, the scooter jerked and the craft’s fat nose began to rise. The missing Adlin had obviously jumped onto the scooter’s tail and were pressing it downward. Dirt filled the air, a choking cloud that quickly cut visibility.

  I swore, straightened my arm over Saska’s trembling body, and fired the rifle again. Twin holes appeared in the scooter’s sloping tail, and the head of the nearest Adlin disintegrated. The other one roared in fury and two more hairy figures appeared to take the place of the one I’d shot. The tail dug deeper into the soil and the whole craft began to shudder. It would tear itself apart if I couldn’t make the Adlin release it. I reloaded and fired, then reloaded and fired again. Hair and muscle and body parts went flying, but the ones I killed were being held in place by the ones who lived, and the scooter was coming to a slow but inevitable halt.

  The front of the vehicle jerked upward. I twisted around, had a brief glimpse of two Adlin as they slipped under the craft’s nose. Something hit us hard; the whole vehicle twisted, the metal groaning as the nose rose again and became almost vertical. It threw me back into the seat but I somehow kept a grip on the rifle and once again fired, blasting a hole through the foot well but catching no Adlin.

  Again, the craft shuddered. But before I could reload, before I could do anything, the tail was torn away from the passenger pod and we were sent tumbling, end over end, across the barren Tenterra soil.

  2

  We came to halt upside down but relatively intact. The air was thick with dust and the windows were caked with the stuff, meaning I had no clue where we’d landed or where the Adlin were. The sensors were ominously quiet. Something must have broken when we’d been sent flying. The engines, however, were still at full bore, and the acrid smell of smoke teased the dusty air. I hastily shut everything down and an odd, creak-filled hush fell over the pod.

  Nothing moved except the wind, and she was urging us to get out, to flee before the Adlin fell upon us again.

  But if we’d did flee, we’d die. The Adlin had kept up with the scooter’s top speed—what hope would we have on foot?

  I reached up with a bloody hand and gripped the ragged edges of the hole I’d blasted into the foot well, and then unlatched the seat belt with the o
ther. Once back on my feet, I twisted around and glanced at Saska. She was hanging upside down, her eyes closed and her expression slack. It was hard to tell whether she was conscious or not.

  “Saska, you okay?”

  She jumped at the question, but didn’t open her eyes. “Yes.”

  The whisperings of the wind got stronger, and brought with it an ominous howling. The Adlin were coming at us yet again.

  I gathered my weapons, then pressed the earwig. “Base, this is eight-three. The scooter is down. I repeat, the scooter is down.”

  Static was my only reply. I cursed softly but resisted the urge to rip the thing out of my ear. While I might not be getting a response, there was always a chance that Winterborne could hear me. And, if not, they should at least be able track my position through it—but only as long as the tail remained inserted in my ear canal.

  “Well,” I said as I began reloading all the weapons, “unless Blacklake can break the land-speed record, it looks like it’s just the two of us.”

  “Yes.” Again her reply was remote.

  I glanced at her sharply. Air spun tightly around her, air that was as sharp and electric as a storm on a summer night. On a surface level, she might have appeared uncertain about her air witch abilities, but her subconscious self certainly had no such doubts.

  The bite in the air got stronger, louder, and the pod began to shudder and shake. But rather than lifting it up, as I half expected, the wind began to tear at the broken metal, ripping it further apart, creating a hole big enough to fit a person through.

  There was a soft click and Saska fell free of her restraints, grunting as she landed partially on her head and partially on her back. The wind began to wrap around her and I suddenly realized what was about to happen.

  “You are not going to leave me here alone, witch.”

  I slung the rifle across my shoulder, clipped the gut busters to my utilities belt, and then lunged forward and wrapped both arms around her waist. And none too soon. The wind had barely finished demolishing the rest of the pod’s wall when it pulled her free, taking me with it in the process. It swept us upward, into the blue of the sky, and then hesitated. Fingers of wind began to tear at my grip on Saska. I closed my eyes and for the first time ever, attempted to meld with the air, reaching as deep into its heart as I could. Pleading my case, asking it to save me too.

  The fingers stopped pulling at my hands and, after a moment, the wind wrapped around us both and held us steady. A cocoon of cloudy, gossamer air that was as soft as spun cotton and yet as cold as ice then formed to conceal us. When that was done, we were ripped up and sideways at speed.

  I had no idea where we were going. The wind might have listened to my plea but she wasn’t talking to me right now. Nor was Saska. All I could do was hope we weren’t being taken toward even bigger trouble.

  Only a few minutes seemed to have passed when our speed diminished and the cocoon began to unravel. Below us, brown soil stretched on forever, empty and without life. I could see neither the Adlin nor the Blacklake rescue party, and there was nothing even remotely familiar.

  The wind delivered us onto the ground then gently eased away. I loosened my grip on Saska and rolled away from her, staring up at the blue sky while I sucked in air and thanked whatever gods might be listening for our freedom.

  I guessed it now was up to me to ensure we remained that way.

  I sat up. While I still had all my weapons, none of them would protect us for very long if the Adlin found us. As for injuries… I finally allowed myself to look at my left hand. The black graphene-and-Kevlar-layered leather glove had undoubtedly saved me from losing it, but neither had gone undamaged. While I could still move three of my fingers, my pinky felt dead and lifeless. There was also a great gash that stretched from my knuckles to my elbow, and it was from this that most of the blood was coming. Weirdly, it wasn’t hurting. Maybe I was still in shock. Or maybe the desperate knowledge of what our fate might yet be if we didn’t find some sort of sanctuary in this barren, blighted place was simply smothering it.

  If I wanted any chance of survival, the first thing I’d better do was stop the blood loss. I stripped off my jacket, and then grabbed the knife and cut the sleeves into strips. I didn’t bother taking off my glove—it was probably helping to keep the wound together—and simply wound the strips of material as tightly as I could over my hand and forearm. It would make grabbing and firing weapons harder, but realistically, a lack of movement in one hand wasn’t going to make a great deal of difference if we were caught.

  I shoved my jacket back on then pushed upright. There was nothing on the horizon, no sign of dust, and absolutely no indication of where we were. I unclipped the small compass from my belt and held it away from my body. The needle swung about for a second or two, then settled on north. Winterborne lay to the south, Blacklake to the west. All of which wasn’t much help when I had no idea where we’d actually landed and therefore how far we were from either of them. I bent and roughly shook Saska. “Wake up.”

  “Can’t,” she mumbled. “Everything hurts.”

  I’d heard that sometimes when a witch used too much of their strength to summon and control wind and weather, their body could be thrown into such a state of shock that could take hours—if not days—for them to recover, but I wouldn’t have thought that would have applied here.

  But then, what would I know? I wasn’t witch trained and had never asked the wind to do much more than throw up the occasional dust devil.

  “Where did you ask the wind to take us?” I said. “Where did it leave us?”

  “Home,” she said. “I told it to go home.”

  “And is your home Winterborne?”

  “No. Yes.” The wind stirred, briefly teasing her hair, and then she waved a hand. “West. We went west.”

  Meaning we were probably closer to Blacklake than Winterborne. Which was handy, given the garrison had emptied out to rescue us, but only if they weren’t headed in the opposite direction to where we now were.

  “We need to start walking.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must.” I reached down, grabbed her hand with my one good one, then planted my feet and hauled her upright. She cursed me, her language colorful and inventive. No gently raised witch, this one, I thought with a grin.

  “Lean on me.” I gripped her waist with my bad hand—as much as I was able to anyway—to steady her.

  She flung an arm around my shoulders and, after a stumble or two, we began walking in a westerly direction. Although our pace wasn’t great, it was at least momentum.

  Time ticked by. The sun got higher, and no matter how hard I scanned the horizon, there was no sign that anyone or anything was coming to rescue us. But there was also no sign of the Adlin, so I guess that evened things out.

  We continued walking. The barrenness of this place seemed to stretch on, with no relief in sight. Wherever the hell the wind had blown us, it obviously wasn’t anywhere near the Blacklake encampment. While I hadn’t actually been there, I’d done escort duty to Farsprings, and that place was a veritable garden, thanks to its closeness to the river and the attention the two witches who did duty there gave to the soil immediately around the encampment. I could see no reason why Blacklake, with the river running across its western flank, would be any different.

  As the day grew hotter and the air shimmered, walking became more and more difficult. My arm burned, the pain a pulse that was as rapid as my heartbeat, and an odd lightheadedness was beginning to take hold.

  That’s when I saw it.

  The dust.

  Relief stirred and I staggered to a stop. The approaching cloud was thick and heavy, and spoke of numbers.

  “I think the cavalry just found us, Saska.”

  “No.”

  The reply was so softly spoken I wouldn’t have heard it if not for the wind snatching it up toward me. That same wind spoke of the dust and the things that came.

  It wasn’t the Blacklake soldi
ers. It was the Adlin.

  They’d found us.

  Somehow, the bastards had found us.

  I couldn’t run. Nor could I call the wind—not to lift us up and whisk us away. I didn’t have the strength to maintain such an order, even if the wind would obey a call like that from me. Maybe Saska could… but even as that thought crossed my mind, her knees buckled and she became a deadweight that almost dragged me down with her.

  I let her go, took a deep breath, and tried to think. To plan. After a moment, I pressed the earwig and said, “This is Nightwatch eight-three, sending out a code red call. We are on foot and in trouble. The earwig is malfunctioning and the scooter is destroyed. Adlin have our scent. We have, perhaps, ten minutes. If you’re out there, if you’re listening, come save our asses. And if you can’t do that, come get our bodies.”

  Or whatever was left of them after the Adlin had finished with us.

  I glanced around again, looking for someplace to make a stand, to give us hope, but there was absolutely nothing but flat, hard earth….

  Maybe that was our salvation.

  I gathered the wind to my hand, directed it at the soil, and asked it to dig. Maybe she sensed my desperation and need, because she gathered speed and strength as she clawed at the soil. Dust flew all around us, a choking cloud that would flag our presence to anyone who was out there. It didn’t matter, because the only things that were out there were the Adlin, and they were already well aware of us.

  A short trench that was three feet wide and almost double that in depth was soon created. I directed the wind sideways to create a cave, then jumped into the trench and dragged Saska in after me. There was very little room to maneuver but that was the whole point.

  The fierce, trumpeting war cry of the Adlin bit across the howling of the wind. I closed my eyes and urged the air to hurry. She picked up strength, tearing at my hair and clothes, threatening to suck us into the vortex that was hammering through the rocklike soil. Chunks of earth began to explode all around us. I shifted to protect Saska’s naked body, but it was mostly the smaller pieces that hit us. The larger chunks were flung upwards and shot sideways. Maybe the wind was doing her bit to help us.