by Jean Kilczer
“One of these days, Chance!” I muttered, got up, brushed off snow, and looked past Huff at Sophia, who had stopped and was waiting.
“I am sorry,” Huff said, “for my clumsy body.” Are you all well in the frail Terran bones?"
“I'm fine, Huff, I'm still in one piece.” I smiled at Sophia.
“My liver was broken for you.” Huff caught me in a bear hug.
“Easy, Huff, my ribs.”
“Yes,” he let go, “your bending ribs.”
By the look on Sophia's face, she thought none of this was funny. Her hair was white with snow, the shoulders of her jacket, too.
“Huff,” I said, “wait for me in the jeep, OK? I want to say hello to Sophia.”
He glanced back at her. “I think she will say more than just hello.”
“I think you're right. Will you wait in the jeep?”
“I will wait. Wait for what?”
“For me to say hello!”
“Oh, then it will not be a long wait.”
I patted his shoulder and watched him trot back to the jeep. My friend was of the same race as Lord Aburra, yet while Huff could love without conditions, Aburra could only hate to the depths of depravity.
I turned to Sophia and smiled. Her lips quivered. “Don't cry.” I walked to her, and we hugged. “They'll freeze on your cheeks.” I dusted snow from her hair. “My snow queen. You're too young for white hair.”
She rested her head against my chest. “You think so? Then maybe I should've fallen for a night watchman in a morgue.”
I took her face between my gloved hands and kissed her. “Your lips are warm.”
She stared at me with a look close to sorrow, and brushed my cheek with her fingers.
“You're scaring me,” I said.
“Not nearly as much as you scared me.”
“I know. How many times can I say I'm sorry?”
“Never again, Jules. I knew what you were from the time we met on the pier, and then you stole my motorcycle.”
“I brought it back. There were tags after me.”
“Yes. That's what I mean.” She took my hand and pressed it to her cheek. “This time, waiting on the boat while you went off to war–”
“I wasn't supposed to get involved in the action, Soph, I was only supposed to–”
“But you always do. I decided that I had to make a decision.”
“Oh?”
She tucked a strand of my hair back under the woolen cap. “Either I accept you the way you are, or I say goodbye.”
I felt a jolt of fear stronger than when I faced Aburra, but I waited silently.
“Joe told me he gave up on you a long time ago, but I don't believe him. He worries about you like a father.”
I bit my lip. “Joe's the only father I ever knew.”
“And he'd never say goodbye. He's no good at it.” She smiled. “And neither am I.”
I let out the breath I was holding. “Does that mean I get to keep you?”
“As surely as a crusty in a bug bag.”
“You really scared me, Soph.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
I lifted her chin and we kissed. “My Sophia,” I murmured and held her close. “My woman.”
Chancey leaned over the front seat and blew the horn.
“They can't seem to get along without you.” She wiped a tear and shrugged. “Neither can I.”
“I'll try to be more careful. I promise.”
She shook her head. “I fell in love with you, not my image of what you should be.”
“Have I told you lately that I love you?” It was a joke between us.
“Not enough times,” she recited. “I want to hear it every morning, like an alarm clock.”
I took her hand and we walked toward the jeep. “Right after you say 'The pancakes are ready, my lord'.”
“Right after that, dear.”
Big Sarge and his mercs were driving into the destroyed keep, firing as they entered.
“C'mon,” I said, “let's get out of here.”
She stared at the troops. “I'm afraid of what they're doing.”
“Soph, the last living soldier of the twentieth-century's World War Two said that war is nothing more than organized murder.”
I wondered if Lord Aburra would be among the dead. One could only hope.
Chapter Twenty Two
Lord Aburra crawled out from under a mound of ice shards and shook himself off. His royal red cape was torn. Bare spots showed where white trim fur had been ripped off. He touched the searing cut on his flank and licked blood from his forepaw. Around him lay the bodies of his soldiers and the ruins of his northern headquarters. The prison ice hut was the only building still standing. Nothing else remained
Water from melting ice around the broken pipes shimmered with diamonds of light as the sun broke through clouds.
A few of his soldiers made their way out from under heaps of ice, now that the heathen invaders were gone.
Lord Aburra limped to the wall on all fours, reared up, and watched enemy troops disappear over the white stillness of distant hills. A deadly rage, deeper than he had ever known, reached into the cauldron of his soul like a greedy mouth and ate away everything that wasn't revenge. Revenge became a fire that could only be quenched by the blood of his enemies.
Silently, the few remaining Cultists gathered around their religious leader, some holding paws against wounds that left blood trails, wanting words of encouragement and hope.
Lord Aburra brushed past them and limped to his jeep. “God of the Pit!” he swore as he realized the motor had been destroyed during the explosions.
He turned to the group of soldiers. “Why are you standing there like dim-witted flappers? Contact our Southern forces and tell them to send a vehicle to pick me up! Or would you rather crawl back under the ice and hide?”
A rangy Cultist, with a forepaw pressed against his bleeding side, reached into his pouch and took out a comlink.
Aburra stared at the great expanse of snow beyond the walls. He gripped his weapon, but left it holstered as he turned back to his soldiers. "I was made for war. I will not rest or take any pleasure until these hands drip with the blood of two infidel Terrans, the leader of the mercenaries and his cohort Rammis.
Chapter Twenty Three
The team agreed that with Big Sarge and General Ara Saun's help, and the Druids willing to fight the Cultists from the sea, it was time for us to go home. All but Huff. After all, Kresthaven was his homeworld.
That night, we celebrated aboard our boat with a bottle of champagne Chancey had brought along for a special occasion. Granbor, with his family of Druids, some Cleoceans, and five Rebel Slatties who had been on northern patrol and saw the fires from Aburra's keep, came to join us. We watched them fling themselves high into the air and crash back down through the surface.
“I think it's their victory dance,” I said.
“If it is,” Joe answered, “it's a bit premature.” He sipped his drink from a deck chair. “They still have to deal with Aburra's Southern forces.”
“Yeah, there's that.” Chancey lifted his glass to our cavorting friends. “But a little R and R ain't bad between battles.”
“So Sarge and his mercs never found Aburra's body?” Joe asked.
I shook my head. “There were mounds of broken ice from the collapsed buildings, Joe, and the fires were spreading. They had to get out fast after…well, after what they called mop-up.”
Huff sighed and took a candy bar from out his pouch. “I pray for the livers of our enemies, too.” He unwrapped the bar. “There is a thing in here that makes the whole world right even when the sky is falling down on our heads.”
Bat chuckled. “It's called a mood-altering drug, Huff. Makes you feel like you're in love.”
“I am in love,” Huff said, “with these candy bars.”
“I wonder how chocolate does that?” Sophia asked.
“Essentially,” I said, “chocolate has
a psychoactive compound that crosses the blood-brain barrier and acts on the central nervous system where it affects brain function. It can imitate the feeling of happiness, and even falling in love.” I put an arm around Sophia's shoulder. “But it's not as good as the real thing.”
“I had to pick an astrobiologist.” Sophia planted a kiss on my cheek.
“Keep that up, woman,” I said, “and the astrobiologist will be bedding you.”
She laughed. “I'm safe as long as Huff's around.”
We saluted our sea friends and turned in for the night. It had been a hard day, to say the least. Granbor took the anchor line of the spare boat that had belonged to the two Terran brothers, and swam toward a glacier. We had given it to the Druid family as a gift, though what these sea people would do with a boat was beyond me.
Tomorrow, we'd take our hovair up to orbiting Star Sojourner and point her home.
It was a nice plan. Too bad it didn't work out.
* * *
The gentle rocking of the boat, the lapping of waves, like tongues licking the hull, the far-off call of a sea creature, conspired to induce sleep. Until I felt a pressure against my mind. My shields were down, and something very wicked was coming this way.
I lifted my head and looked at my companions, asleep in their bunks inside the cabin of our boat. Sophia's dark curls covered her face in the dim light. One arm hung over the side of the bunk. I smiled as she sighed deeply in her sleep.
“Dream of me, my love,” I murmured.
Huff, curled on the floor beside me, raised his snout and sniffed. Huff is slightly telepathic, but I think he receives tel-sends more like fleeting thoughts he can't separate from his own.
“What is it, Huff?” I whispered.
“Something…not sweet.”
“Not good?”
“Not good.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bunk and stood up. The windows were black with night. The air felt heavy with a moist, salted aroma skimmed from the sea. “Maybe a storm's heading our way.”
Wishful thinking.
The sinister tentacles of rage that bored into my mind had nothing to do with natural forces that raise storms.
“Come with me, Huff,” I said quietly, went to the door and opened it. We sleep in our clothes for warmth, but I grabbed my jacket from a hook on the way out, closed the door softly behind us, and put it on.
Something large and white flashed by on the starboard side. The boat suddenly lurched to port. I grabbed a strut and hung on. “What the hell!”
Huff scrambled to maintain his footing as he slid across the deck.
The boat heaved again, to port, so high I thought it would flip over. I heard Sophia scream from inside the cabin.
And then, as deck lights flicked on, I saw them. The five Slatties who had sported red Rebel armbands when they joined the party, now wore blue Cultist bands.
Their true colors, I thought dumbly and threw myself across the deck, rolled to a starboard pontoon, and leaned on it to hold down the inflatable boat.
I reached for my stingler and realized I hadn't strapped it on.
If these Cultists were out to kill us, they had only to burn holes in the pontoons and sink the boat. We wouldn't last fifteen minutes in this frigid water without survival suits. But the thought of our enemies taking us alive was even more frightening. Unless they just wanted the boat intact. They had lost many crafts in their battle with Ara Saun's forces.
A sudden thought struck me. They were not out to flip the boat, but to keep my companions, with their weapons, from coming onto the deck.
Oh, the plans I have for you, Aburra had said. Was he after me alone? Could be.
I clung to a pontoon strap while the boat slammed back down. “No, Huff!” I shouted as he leaped over the side. The largest Slattie swam toward him. I saw the glimmer of his golden armband. Aburra!
The four Cultists got under the boat and held it up from the starboard side. I closed my eyes and concentrated on a tel-probe calculated to reach all four. It would be weaker than a focused send, but vital for a sweep of all their minds. I conjured with fire and energy there within my mind, knitted it into a swirling vortex, and threw it.
Listen to me, I sent. Listen to me, you noble Cultists. You want to put down the boat. Your forearms are so tired they burn with fatigue. Put down the boat! Your gallant work is finished. You have been successful. The Ten Gods love you. Put down the boat!
I felt the boat ease back to water level. The four Cultists swam around Huff and Aburra. Aburra barked a command in his native language and the Cultists backed away.
I zeroed in on Aburra's mind as Huff leaped at him and made a grab for his neck with bared teeth. Aburra flung him off and bite his leg as he fell.
Huff growled, more with anger than with pain. He flung himself at Aburra, landed on the Lord's shoulder and bite into it.
Aburra roared with rage, turned quickly and caught Huff by his neck.
Oh no! I targeted Aburra's mind. Let him go! You want to let him go. You want him alive. Don't kill him. You want him alive!
Aburra was a sensitive. He knew I was sending, but was helpless to shrug off my command. His grip loosened and Huff struggled to get free. I was dimly aware of my companions piling onto the deck with their weapons.
Aburra let go of Huff when he saw them, and growled a command to his soldiers. They dived under the boat as my group fired over the pontoon. I was surprised the Cultists hadn't stayed to fight. They must've had weapons hidden in their pouches, along with the blue armbands. Perhaps Aburra was afraid of burning the boat.
“Don't hit Huff!” I yelled to my friends, knowing that one Slattie looked a lot like another, especially at night.
The anchor line! I saw it go taut. The bow dipped and the boat was towed through slashes of white water. To where?
I helped Huff back on board. He staggered but remained on his feet. “You OK, buddy?” I asked him.
He just nodded. He was bleeding from a neck and a leg wound. Bat ran into the cabin and came out with his medkit.
Chancey pulled up enough of the anchor line to get past the chain, and cut it.
Sophia stood by my side. “Are you all right?” Her voice was shaky.
“I'm fine, Soph.”
“The bastards are moving the boat from underneath,” Joe said. “God knows what they've got in mind for us.” He went to the motor and tried to start it manually. It turned over but there was no thrust. The Cultists had disabled the power lines.
“Joe,” I headed for the cabin, “let's grab what we can, get into survival suits and–”
“Board the skiff.” He nodded. “We do it quietly, then we cut the towline and take off.”
“Chancey.” I gestured for him to come closer and told him our plan.
A white barrier, almost a fog in the night, rose up ahead of our bow. The Cultists were moving the boat toward land.
“I'll give you two to one,” Chancey said, “they're spoiling for a firefight from cover on land.”
“Could be, Chance,” I said. “They don't want to damage the boat.”
We donned our survival suits inside the cabin, grabbed the sous chef, the dive equipment and compass, the digestall tablets and bio lab unit, went out on deck and handed Bat his suit. I bandaged Huff's leg wound while Bat threw on his suit.
Sophia, Joe, and Chancey were already in the skiff.
“Huff,” I said, “get into the skiff as gently as you can. We don't want them to know we've boarded it. OK, buddy?”
“Gentle.” He staggered to the stern. “I will gentle be,” he murmured, tripped, and fell into the skiff with a crash.
“Christ and Buddha!” I jumped in after him, followed by Bat, who clutched his medkit.
Chancey cut the towline while Joe went to the motor. I think we all held our breath until we heard the comforting whir, and saw the jet stream stir bubbles behind us.
“Head out to sea,” I told Chancey, who grabbed the steering wheel. �
��It's an incoming tide. They'll have a harder time swimming after us.”
“Hang on!” Chancey shouted as Cultist' heads bobbed onto the surface, watching us. Chancey swung the small boat around, plowing water, and slammed it through shore-bound waves.
The Cultists disappeared into the night, and so did the land. If not for the compass, we'd have no idea which way was shore.
I sat in the small boat with my arm around Sophia. We were all silent, each with our own thoughts. And fears.
“I'd say we head south,” I told Joe, “and try to hook up with Ara Saun and his people.”
“Or better yet,” Bat said, with “Sarge and his mercs.”
“Maybe,” Sophia said, “Sarge can give us a ride and an escort to our hovair.”
“Maybe.” I prayed that Aburra hadn't already discovered the hovair's hiding place. He probably wouldn't know how to fly it, but he could sure as hell destroy it. I kept that thought to myself, in the unlikely event that one of us hadn't drawn the same conclusion.
It should have been an easy ride south to Ara Saun's station, but nature doesn't always comply with the prerequisites for survival.
I felt the storm as a powerful energy against my thoughts even before it approached. “Chance, head for land.” I pressed the canopy button on the console and watched it unroll into a roof.
“You expecting a storm?” He read the compass, and turned the boat around.
“It's coming out of the northeast,” I told him and sat next to Sophia.
“A nor'easter,” Chancey said. “I heard about them, out on Long island. Vicious mothers.”
“Now you'll get to experience one,” Joe commented, “if you don't open her up.”
“The waves are choppy, boss,” Chancey told him. “We can't ride them going any faster.”
“He's right, Joe,” I added. “It could damage the rigid hull.”
“Or us,” Sophia said.
Huff was asleep. I moved closer to him and eased his head onto my lap. Sophia joined me there. “How is he, Bat?” I asked.
Bat stroked Huff's shoulder. “His blood pressure's down and he's breathing faster than he should be, but I think he'll come out of it all right.”
My comlink light blinked on. I looked at Joe. He shook his head and put a finger over his lips.
