Seigie, likewise, knelt, looking with curiosity at the bright stones. Unaware of their pause behind him, Naijen kept going.
“Fascinating,” Seigie said. “It’s a form of barite stone.”
“Barite?” Mencari paused, looking concerned. Seigie’s stoic eyes glinted, and she said, “Rhysus . . .”
“I know. I was going to ask Naijen if we could stop for a while, maybe rest. But the sooner we leave, the better.”
Allia looked between them, confused. “What’s the problem?”
Seigie explained, “Radiation. Barite glows when there’s radiation.”
As they looked ahead, they saw various colors down the path. They also noticed Naijen quickly getting too far ahead.
“Hey!” Mencari called after him, and they all scrambled to follow.
“I left my cave for this?” Seigie muttered, moving her heavy weight as fast as she could, “To follow a crazy warrior on a midnight run through a radiation field?”
Over the hill, they caught up with Naijen, who had waited, impatient, with Allia and Ichini, for the others to catch up. He stood upright, bouncing slightly on the balls of his toes as Mencari and finally Seigie lumbered up. In the uncomfortable silence, Mencari tried to ease the tension. “I’m sorry to hear about Jerin.”
Without hesitation, Naijen retorted, “Nothin’ ta be sorry ’bout. Served our haven well. If it wasn’t for the cheap tactics of those Anto’liea, he’d ’a led us ta victory.”
“What would have happened if he had?”
“What would’a happened? The Anto’liea would’a lost control’a the resources, that’s what! Our lives w’ud be better. We wouldn’t need ’em to just scrape by.”
Allia looked into the darkness, her knees bent into a crouch.
“Something out there?” Mencari said, looking to the girl, keeping his voice low.
Nodding, her eyes scoured the darkness. “It’s big.”
Ichini circled her, then looked out over the terrain. The two moons had both set, but the landscape was now getting lighter by the second, as the first glimmers of dawn streaked on a brightening horizon line.
“Tell’er to cut the act,” Naijen scoffed. “I’ve got good ears, too. Nothin’ out there.”
Now ignoring him, Allia concentrated as Ichini began to bristle. After a moment she said, “It’s big . . . and hungry.”
Naijen paused, glancing over his shoulder.
Allia pointed. “To the west.”
Naijen crouched to the ground, placing his hand flat on it. “Nothin’. Stupid kid.”
But then he paused. Mencari could see it in the warrior’s eyes, he caught something.
“It knows we’re here,” Allia whispered, and Ichini’s eyes began to shimmer with light.
Mencari muttered, “Everyone . . . be ready!”
This time no one chuckled at his familiar warning.
A howl ripped through the air, followed by the sound of galloping hooves. Allia’s expression turned to puzzlement. When Naijen heard the sound, he grinned broadly and bared his double-clawed weapon. Squeezing the handgrip, long blades protruded from each end as he bellowed, “A Renzr beast!”
The shadow of a horse-like creature began to grow. Well within range, Mencari let out a few warning shots of his hand-phaser to scare the creature off. It howled and charged faster at them.
“Ya better have more in you than that,” Naijen said, “or this’ll be a short fight.”
When the beast was all but upon them, Mencari saw what Naijen meant. Towering eighteen feet above them, the two-headed creature sprang across the ground into the attack. Scales covered most of its body, with the exception of tufts of fur atop its mammoth shoulders and exposed skin on its chest and abdomen.
One head howled again, and this time, the second head, smaller, called in chorus.
“It’s like that other creature was,” Allia said, her eyes wide but distant. “Hungry. Ravenous.”
The creature’s smaller, deformed head spewed a stream of sticky liquid at them, causing them to scatter.
“Corrosive poison!” Naijen yelled. “If it touches ya, it’ll stick ’til it eats ya through!”
“Do we have to hurt it, Seigie?” Allia said, as she and the old woman rolled together behind a boulder.
Seigie glanced at her. “Sometimes, child, it’s a battle for which contender survives. This, I fear, is one of those.”
Standing up, then ducking to dodge another stream of the toxic liquid, Seigie reached into her pockets and grabbed a handful of stones. Allia sprang from boulder to boulder, bounding around, trying to keep the creature distracted. Mencari turned on his heels, upped the setting on his hand-phaser, whirled around and let out another volley. The blasts hit the creature at near point-blank range, and it let out a howl before each of its mouths spat more of the sticky liquid.
Seigie threw her stones and yelled out, “Sapphire wash!”
The stones illuminated and burst into a flood of water that met the creature’s attack midair, diluting the goo into a puddle that absorbed into the sandy soil.
Ichini followed Allia in dancing around the beast, keeping his gaze locked on the creature. Finding himself behind the Renzr, Naijen leapt into the air and brought down his blade squarely on its back. As it hit, the blade glanced off the scales, forcing him to tuck and roll as the blade skidded off its target. In a quick turn, the creature clawed at Naijen and missed him by a hair’s breadth.
Reluctance on her face, Allia threw two flash pellets in front of the creature. They exploded in the air. Its main head was blinded, but the second one turned to stare at her balefully.
As the creature lurched in her direction, Ichini morphed into a short-legged creature that leapt onto the Renzr’s back and wrapped its long powerful arms around the beast’s neck.
The beast reared up on hind legs. The others backed away as the creature bucked wildly, flailing out its front claws, trying to catch Ichini and rip him off.
Mencari looked over and noticed that Allia had slowed to a stop, looking a little dazed, all expression gone from her face.
Taking advantage of the beast’s vulnerable position, Naijen raised his weapon and drove its blades forward, aiming for its underbelly, at a patch of beast that looked to be without protective armor. The Renzr’s arms thrashed wildly, intercepting the blades and clipping Naijen. Both were tossed, spinning, in opposite directions. Ichini was nearly tossed from the beast but managed to hang on, as Naijen crashed into a boulder. A cry of surprise escaped as the ego-bruised warrior rolled behind the rock and tried to stand, then collapsed to his knees, his head down, fighting vertigo. The creature’s second head unleashed a blast of the ooze, coating Naijen’s weapon that lay on the ground.
Seigie made for his weapon. As she lumbered toward it, wincing in pain, she raised her arm and threw more crystals and yelled out, “Sapphire wash!”
The small wave crashed over the weapon, removing the slime.
Allia seemed somewhat recovered. She sauntered over to the weapon lying on the ground and picked it up, looking at Naijen while she squeezed the weapon as he had, retracting the blades back into the claws. He gave her a jealous glare.
Determined to break free, the creature fell backward, slamming Ichini into the ground. The instant Ichini’s grasp broke, the Renzr got to its feet and barreled toward Allia. She yelled out and threw the weapon to Naijen, who squeezed and readied the bladed weapon for attack.
Seigie let loose a volley of crystals, bellowing, “Ruby fire!”
The crystals burst into fiery spheres and pummeled the Renzr. The creature howled as the hair on its shoulders singed off, but continued its charge at Allia. Mencari panicked when he saw a distracted Allia was still in harm’s way.
He shouted, “Allia, move!”
In moments it would be too late. Mencari clenched his fists as images of his son flashed before him. White light pooled around his hands. “Allia!”
Scarcely aware of his movements, he reached forward, releasing searing b
alls of energy. Streaking like a shooting star, the creature’s scaly armor yielded. Its two heads howled, and a different type of liquid burst from the smaller head while it dropped suddenly to its knees mid-charge, ripping up the ground and skidding to a halt.
As it fell, Allia turned and screamed. “No! Stop!” She ran to the struggling creature and knelt beside it just as its two heads fell motionless to the ground.
“Allia, no!” Mencari shouted and raced to stop her.
She laid her hands on the beast and began glowing with a fierce green light. Its eyes looked toward her. “We were wrong to attack it,” she whimpered.
Confused and annoyed, Naijen began to yell, “What ya doin’? It tried to kill us!”
The creature’s wounds began to share the green radiance, and Allia closed her eyes. “We’re sorry,” she moaned. “Don’t die!”
Thick liquid continued to pump from the creature despite her light radiating from inside it.
“Why isn’t it working?” she cried desperately.
Mencari noticed the sudden blank expression in Allia’s eyes, as the beast intensely gazed at her. He nearly moved to protect her when she gasped in alarm. The beast’s eyes began to wander and fade.
“No! . . . NO!” she yelled. A wave of heat blasted from her as the healing light bloomed into a pool of bright green light which danced around them.
Its eyes closed, its body gave a last twitch, then was still.
“It’s gone,” Mencari said, keeping his voice gentle.
Sobbing softly, Allia slumped against the creature’s carcass. “Why couldn’t I . . . ?”
He knelt and picked her up, cradling the child in his arms. “It’s okay. You did what you could. Let’s go now.”
Exhausted and weeping, the little girl collapsed, sniffling against Mencari’s chest. “You . . . don’t understand.” Her speech slurred. “It only wanted to feed. We were . . . in its way.”
“We got ground ta cover,” Naijen said gruffly.
Each of them nursing their aches and pains, they limped away from the fallen beast, returning to the path of glowing stones.
After the beast was out of sight, Naijen broke the silence. “I fought critters like that before, but I didn’t expect none’a that.”
Mencari felt Allia go limp and looked down to see her out cold. He exchanged worried glances with Seigie, then turned to Naijen. “What didn’t you expect?”
“How’d ya do that? Takin’ down the Renzr?”
Mencari hesitated, wondering what to reveal.
“That? It’s a concentration of energy. Like your attack against the androids back in the arena. Though, it never happened for me quite like that before,” Mencari replied with honesty.
“And you?” Naijen looked at the old woman.
“I transmute the energy of crystals into a physical form,” Seigie said.
“Whatever that means, it did the job.” Naijen looked back at them over his shoulder, still leading the pack, although the pace was now slow. “I saw that Ichi creature’s trick before. But the kid’s?”
He paused, selecting his words carefully. “And she was right about the Renzr coming. And . . .”
Mencari paused walking. “And?”
“The way she looked at it. Wuz she readin’ its thoughts?”
Mencari glanced down at her sleeping form. “Seems like another of her gifts.”
“And wha’s that green light-stuff?”
“Healing. We’ve seen her do it before.”
Naijen chided, “After that performance, you’re either the worst assassins I met, or you’re tellin’ the truth.”
The warrior kicked up dirt along the path, which tossed glowing flecks into the air.
“So much for those new tattoos,” Naijen added.
“Den said the same thing,” Mencari said.
“Yeah? I’ll bet. She craves ’em too.” He laughed cruelly then looked at Allia, cradled in Mencari’s arms. “She still out?”
“Yeah. The way she was acting before . . . I don’t like this. Maybe the radiation . . . I want to get her back to base as fast as we can. For her to fall asleep . . . something’s not right.”
Naijen nodded ahead. “Nearly there now. I’ll say my goodbyes, ’an we’ll be on our way.”
CHAPTER 14:
Allia’s Detour
Naijen pointed to a small structure in the distance. “Ova there.”
The first rays of morning had begun to cut streaks into the darkness, and a green haze tinted the sky. On either side of the building’s main entrance, white-and-blue flames danced in large clay jars. An orange sun seemed to burst from the ground as it rose.
“What is it?” Seigie asked.
“A shrine.”
Allia began to stir, as the group paused. Mencari laid her on the ground, his arms burning from fatigue. Seigie hadn’t offered to help carry her, but he decided it was because, with her crystalline nature, she feared scratching the child. And Naijen would probably be terrified of touching a child, he thought.
He leaned down, shaking out his arms as he called her name.
“Rhysus,” she murmured.
“Right here,” he said gently.
“I don’t feel very . . .”
Her eyes closed again. He paused, waiting for her to respond further. She didn’t. Worry spread across Mencari’s face.
“I would suggest haste,” Seigie said.
Ichini nuzzled Allia’s forehead.
Mencari reached out to pat the creature’s snout, trying to reassure it, and maybe himself, that all would be well. Amazingly, Ichini allowed it.
“Look at his color,” Seigie said.
“What?” He looked down. A strange green cast was spreading over the beast’s body.
With no idea what could be causing it, the sight merely added to his worry as he picked Allia up and they headed together to the shrine’s entrance.
Inside, four guards stood waiting, their weapons thrust in front of them. Mencari and Seigie fell back defensively, but Naijen raised his hand and said, “They’re wit’ me.”
They followed Naijen as he edged farther inside, where they could see three bloodied bodies piled in a heap behind the guards.
One of the Kunren guards muttered, “Anto’lieans. Assassins. But not very good at their job.” He laughed coarsely.
Mencari noticed that the guards had cut small tattooed patches off the bodies of the fallen.
“Figured as much,” Naijen said, his voice showing frustration. Mencari suspected Naijen was disappointed to have missed that fight.
In explanation, the guard replied, “Den told the Master you’d be heading here. The Master figured you’d have the typical Anto’liea guests waiting for you. He wanted to make sure you weren’t at an unfair disadvantage.”
Naijen said, “Too bad, it could’a been fun.”
The guard nodded slyly. “We’ll get new tattoos for these three.”
Naijen nodded. “Mark your skin with honor. If I was goin’ back, I’d vouch for ya vic’try.”
Mencari relaxed a bit, relieved, but the second guard’s face turned white and he said, “What do you mean, if you was going back?”
Naijen replied, “I’m gonna train in a new place. Where I can have a real challenge.”
“You’re leaving Kunren?”
“Don’ get too cocky. I’ll be back, and I ’spect to see a team ready for my lead when I do.”
The second guard bowed. “May your days of training make your body burn at night.”
Naijen nodded. “Until the end.”
The warrior turned to Mencari. “’Dis is where the remains of our fallen Olympic warriors are buried. My brother . . . he’s at rest here.”
Going to a dip in the floor, Naijen knelt before a small plaque level with it. “I will be back, Jerin. And I’ll give the Anto’liea what they deserve.”
He paused and grunted a warrior’s prayer, then placed his hand on a symbol just above Jerin’s name on the marker. He p
ressed in gently, then twisted. With a popping noise, the embellishment broke off into his hands. He placed it into his pocket and rose.
Mencari said, “To the spaceport then?”
Naijen nodded matter-of-factly. “Dere’s a shortcut from here.”
* * * * *
“This’iz nutz,” Naijen muttered, staring out the craft window, the atmosphere of his world thinning away.
“If you train with us,” Seigie sighed from the pilot’s seat, “you’ll get used to it.”
Mencari checked Allia, and found her still sleeping. He immediately called up Osuto and told him what had happened. Toriko and Ujaku’s worried faces joined their mentor’s.
Toriko said, “I’ll rework one of the new rooms we’re adding into an infirmary. I’ll start researching the effect of radiation, too.”
Osuto looked deadly serious. “Get her home fast, Rhysus.”
* * * * *
“Don’t look like much of a battle fort. This it?” Naijen griped, unloading from the ship and looking about.
“It is for now,” Mencari said. “Still building things out.”
The warrior’s expression remained dubious.
Mencari carefully lifted Allia from her restraints and carried her off the ship. Toriko cried out when she saw the child’s limp body and green color. She and Ujaku escorted them to the new infirmary. Osuto followed a few moments later.
Mencari laid her on the bed. He was startled as a small ray passed over her body, and looked around to see flashing results up on a screen.
“It’s radiation, all right,” Toriko said. “She’s permeated with it!”
She rushed out of the room. Naijen entered as she left. As the grizzled, hulking warrior looked at Allia, his apathetic expression softened. “Somethin’ good about that kid,” he muttered. Despite the rough start, his respect was reflected in his eyes, as he gazed at her motionless form. “Had some amazing combat moves, too.”
Toriko returned with a monitor that she strapped onto Allia’s arm. “It’s only a gizmo to analyze how deep the radiation is, not to treat it.” She looked at Naijen. “Where were you all when . . . when this happened?”
D'mok Revival: The Nukari Invasion Anthology Page 25
