“It’s light,” he told Cherry.
“Polycarbon. Almost no metal. It’s also yours now. Think you’re going to Sunward?” she asked.
He was already getting inside the inner circle as she asked. “I am. We’re going to see how fast this thing can go over the plain.”
“Single stick, like a shuttle. Brakes are on the left, throttle on right. Self-balancing, so all you need to do is hit the power,” Cherry said.
“Here we go.” Nolan lit up the power and began rolling forward, the sensation of motion verging into something surreal. While he stayed still, the outer tire screamed across the mossy ground until the cycle was on open gravel, flying downhill.
“Even for a space jock like me, this feels like a dangerous speed. Don’t know how I lived without this as a kid,” Nolan shouted into the wind, even though Cherry could hear him under any circumstances.
“A suggestion? At this speed, you’ll be outside Sunward in fifteen minutes. Slow up when you hit the incline, and I’ll start scanning for hostiles. I see additional flames now.”
“Agreed.” Nolan held the stick in one hand and a pistol in the other. The cycle streaked past a startled group of—
“Space cows. Can’t think of them as anything but,” Nolan said, earning a mental laugh from Cherry—then the cycle broke into open territory just north of the original flatback path he’d used with Crowe only a day earlier.
“Nolan. Look up top, on the cliff?” Cherry directed.
He focused on the natural watch tower, scanning across the entire length of Sunward. There was nothing.
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
“Slowing now,” Nolan said into the silence. She needed input to form a conclusion, and the information he was about to gather might be anything but good. Fingers of dread chill began to climb his spine as the plain began rising once again, and Nolan slowed the Loop to a crawl before finally stopping just outside the farthest point along Sunward’s approach trail, clearly marked with footfalls and scuffed ground.
“Something happened here, and not long ago,” he said.
Smoke rose from three distinct fires, and Nolan began a silent walk up the incline, eyes flickering around for any sign of life. A piece of wood split with a nervous crack, and then it was quiet again except for the occasional sounds of burning wood settling further down into piles of coals.
Sunward was dead.
“Any Loop tracks?” Nolan asked, but he saw none. Whatever had been here wasn’t the same as their stolen ride.
“Where are the children? The kits?” Cherry asked. “The Filus were native. The children weren’t. Whatever happened, there should be something left. Something other than ashes.”
Sunward looked intact, but Nolan moved cautiously in and up, ranging closer to the columns of smoke. It felt like walking into a tomb—newly formed by violence, but a tomb nonetheless, and it shook him, making him take steps far more slowly than his normal pace. Nolan had grown up around violence, but this was something new. Crowe and Tilde and the kids had been people, not soldiers, and neither Nolan nor Cherry could grasp what they were seeing as the wind carried smoke away in careless swirls.
“I was here hours ago. It was—it was full. Alive,” Nolan said.
He walked along the dry ground, following drag marks, scuffs, and minor signs of a skirmish, but there was no blood. No chaos, or bodies, or anything that would give clues about what could have taken the people of Sunward so fast. Nolan wandered through the common rooms, workspaces, and courtyard, seeing only one consistent fact.
“All of the tracks lead north,” Cherry said.
“Very well. North it is, then.”
“Crowe called the people North’r, and the land as well. It’s a big continent, Nolan. You’re going to need a steady food supply, water, and survival gear if you’re trying to rescue Crowe’s people,” Cherry said.
“Is that what I’m doing? I guess I am.” It wasn’t a conscious decision, but in that moment, it was made. Nolan had met Crowe, liked him, and now, the place he was stranded on had gone from an innocuous place where space cows wandered to something much more sinister. Just north of the settlement, Nolan saw broad strokes in the dirt, like someone had dragged a giant broom across the ground. “What the hell is that?”
“Let me see?” Cherry asked, so he focused on the marks, panning his vision slowly. Another piece of wood popped angrily, then two more as the fire began to lose its power, the settlement fading into glowing coals. The marks were mechanical, of that much Nolan was certain.
“Not a wheeled vehicle, and not a Loop. Something wider?” he asked.
“Hovercraft,” Cherry said. “Fast, too. Turbines whining hard enough to drive them at two hundred klicks, easily. If anyone survived whatever happened here, they’re far to the north by now, Nolan.”
That changed things. He’d planned on giving chase, but as his anger cooled into something far more dangerous, Nolan knew that racing after an unknown force was beyond dangerous; it was stupid. If raiders had taken Crowe’s people, then rushing them might result in a firefight or worse.
He took a deep breath, let it trickle out through his nose, and looked around. “I’m going to scour this place for anything of use, and then we’re going north. I’ll snipe who I can and save whoever can be saved. And then, when I’m done with that—”
“Nolan?” Cherry interrupted, but softly.
“Yeah?”
“You have to live here now. I recommend you start thinking seriously about a long-term survival plan, and sooner is better than later,” she said.
“You’re right.” He inhaled again, scanning the odd setting. There was almost no damage except for the missing people and the small fires, as if the raiders—or whoever had been here—were burning evidence. “I know not to set myself up near a cliff. Okay, once I find out who these people are, and more about this place, I’ll make some decisions.”
“I want you to live,” Cherry said.
“That makes two of us. Now help me spot anything of use, starting with ammo and pointy things,” he said.
“What do you need pointy things for?” Cherry asked.
“Because if someone has hurt those kids, then a bullet’s too good for them.”
“In that case, turn to your left and look above that workbench,” Cherry said.
Nolan spied a gleam of metal on the wall, then took a step toward it, a silly grin spreading across his face. “Oh, hello, beautiful.”
The ship axe was a model used for centuries without change—long, heavy, and with a two-sided head that flared into wide blades, perfect for breaking down doors or close combat in the event of pirates. A ship’s axe was the perfect weapon, with a mono-molecular edge that never dulled, never complained, and never stopped cutting.
He reached up and took it off the wall pegs with a quiet reverence. To a kid from a mining world, a ship’s axe was a badge of honor. Any fool could blast away with a gun, but in the slums of Brightline, when you wanted to send a message, you used an axe.
“Feels good,” Nolan said, swinging the heavy blade in the light gravity. It whistled on the backstroke, and his lips curled in what was supposed to be a smile but ended up just looking mean. “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”
“Nolan, are you aroused? Your vitals are spiking.”
He considered Cherry’s question. “You know, I think I am.”
“At least you’re honest. There’s probably ammo in Crowe’s quarters, if you want to look,” she said. “Go slow. Walking with an erection on low grav might be troubling.”
“I’ll roll my hips,” he said, and Cherry gave the digital equivalent of a snort. A quick rummage produced a magnetic back strap for the axe. When it snapped to the contact points, the axe rested easy on his broad back.
“Feels like an extension of me,” Nolan said.
“Do I need to be jealous of that axe?”
“Never, dear. You’re number one,” he answered.
<
br /> “Smart man,” Cherry said with a mental sniff.
Nolan picked his way through the silent pathways, up in elevation to the place Tilde had emerged from when they’d met. There was no sound, but he held his pistol ready and entered the home through a low, wide window. The house clung to the inner cliff face but was well lit within by natural light from the windows. A blue-white illumination flickered farther inside the house. When Nolan looked up, he could see salvaged light cells taken from some unlucky ship. The cells were ceiling mounted and cast a distressed, erratic light across a scene of utter chaos.
“This is where it happened.”
“Where what happened?” Cherry asked.
Nolan peered down at the polished floors, and there were scuffs and dirt in a desperate array. “They were taken from here, and when the other people saw their leaders captured, they gave up. They were scared.”
Cherry agreed with a grunt.
“And then they walked out—that way?” Nolan asked, kneeling down to get a better angle on the smudged floor. The back of the house was a flat wall, featureless and cut from solid rock. How anyone could have gained entry was uncertain, but he stepped up to the wall and began tapping it with a fist, hoping something obvious would present itself.
Like the door that swung open to reveal metal stairs going up.
“They came down from the roof. Maybe not a hovercraft, then,” Cherry said.
“I still think it’s a hovercraft. The initial team came in here. They knew what they were doing, and—ah, there it is,” Nolan said. A pile of rags sat discarded on the third step from the bottom. “They covered their feet to move silently down here. Smart. But they fucked up.”
“They left the rags behind?” Cherry asked. “They’re blue and green. That’s a uniform.”
“Exactly. Now we just have to find a crashed ship with blue and green crew uniforms. We rush them, take out an unknown force with limited weapons, free Crowe and his people, and save the day. Simple.” Nolan spit on the closest stair, disgust ringing in his voice. “There’s no blood. I’d say that’s about the only good news I’ve gotten.”
“Should you clear the remaining rooms?” Cherry asked.
“I will. If only to see the whole picture, but things are falling into place except for two issues. Why they were taken, and why it happened right after I downed the drone. Crowe acted like other drones had come down, and it was a give-and-take kind of existence. Something changed, and it wasn’t my shot with the rifle. We need to know what happened, and unless we find out, we might never save anyone,” he said.
“But we agree they went north?”
“Absolutely. We go north, but not just yet.” Nolan began sweeping the rooms, the workspaces, what looked like a classroom, and a wide, airy kitchen with modern and primitive tools in it. Something that looked a lot like bread sat on a tray, cool but still fresh, and there were two salted hams of unknown origin. He sliced a bit off, chewed, and smiled.
“Space cow?” Cherry asked.
“I hope so. Better than anything I’ve ever had.” Nolan took the food, found some ammo in two different locations, and added anything else of value that caught his eye. It was clear that theft had not been the motivation for raiding Sunward, unless you considered the theft of people.
They left in less than an hour, finding no sign of a living human, no blood, and not one intentional clue left behind. It was as if Crowe’s people had been overwhelmed, and as Nolan walked to the Loop, a bag of borrowed things swinging over his shoulder, he felt a cold chill in his bones that was not from the wind.
He was on an alien world, with unknown threats and no way to leave, and it was his home, for better or worse.
“I could—if we get off this rock—go back to the enormous range of mountains and live out my days hunting and thinking of squalid Brightline and the black of space, or I could do something completely new,” Nolan said.
“Like?” Cherry asked him, sensing his answer.
He touched the comfortable heft of his axe and slid into the Loop, fingers going around the stick as he began learning more about their new ride.
“Not gonna run, I think. But we will move, and that means going north,” Nolan said. He touched the stick as the Loop whined to life, and the wind began to bite hard.
North. To danger. North—to life.
Chapter Six
Corra, Surfacing
I never knew being dead could hurt so much, Corra thought, rolling to spew river water again, her chest an aching mass of bruises from unseen blows at the hands of the barge and its contents.
“Not dead,” came a gravelly voice. “Bet you wish you were, my lady.”
Through eyes like crescents, she saw Ulwith’s looming face, his features twisted with concern and grief. He’d aged since whenever the barge had come apart, though that may have been a century for all Corra knew.
“My—”
“Not now. It won’t make the news any sweeter, but I just don’t know. Not your parents, or Ren, or any of them. The River Children are dragging bodies in even now, but the sun isn’t up yet and some of them are . . . they’re in bad shape.” His face was deep in shadow, a low light coming from somewhere over her shoulder. Lamp? Candle? She couldn’t tell. The world was moving under her, but that might be the fluid in her ears and lungs. She knew nothing, let alone why she was alive when the last thing she could recall was moving across the bridge to the underworld.
“Where?” A cough, then more sick, a trickle that fell from her lips. She had to be empty by now. She knew her heart felt that way. With a feeble hand, she tried to wipe her mouth, but the pain was a lance of hot agony. “Broken?”
“Just your wrist, that I can tell. Might lose a toe, and you’ll be none too pretty for a moon or two. You’re alive, Corra. By every wave below us, you’re alive.” His voice was fierce with emotions—relief, rage, sadness. No wonder he looked old to her. He was diminshed, now that the family he was charged to protect lay scattered across the river bottom, or worse.
Her mind began to clear with each clean draught of air, the sharp river tang cutting through a fog that lingered throughout her battered body. When she was certain her stomach had finished heaving for the moment, she tried to sit up, slapping at Ulwith’s hand with irritation when he held her in place.
“Let me up. I’m not going to break.” They were the only words she could manage, and they left her gasping, but he relented after a glance at her fevered gaze. She would not be denied, and he knew it. Slowly, he guided her up, a massive hand between her shoulders pressing a rough spun gown into her pale skin.
Too stunned to cry, she tried to sort her memory but found the ability missing, along with so many details. Shock and injury, if she was to hazard a guess, but even so her grief and anger began to rise in a stormy column, cooled only by the reality that she was in a room with her Castledon, and her whole life had been stripped away in a thunderous flood.
“Where are we?” She asked questions now. There would be time for tears later. Grief would never lose the path to her door; even now, she knew that to be true.
“With friends. A supply barge, tied firmly to the cable station just north of where—where your wedding was to be. You’re safe, lady.”
That explained the hint of motion. At least she wasn’t going mad or sick with shock, though recovery seemed a distant possibility at best. Corra had always been a practical child, and she wasn’t about to abandon that quality no matter how grievous her situation. Looking around, she picked out details that told her more about the room, but nothing as to how she’d gotten there.
Reading her thoughts, Ulwith offered her a small seed pod, its edges sharp in the dim light. It looked vaguely dangerous but had almost no weight in her small, waterlogged palm. “What is this?”
“Breath of Ursa. You’ll need it to get there safely, or at least for the trip.”
“Ursa? Like the legend in the stars?” She regarded the pod with suspicion, shaking it to reveal a dr
y, rattling menace from within. It sounded like the plumes of a razorbeak, rattling as it pursued prey across the rocky slopes.
“Some time ago, there were creatures called bears. They’re rumored to exist in the Faunhills, but even those stories might be the fever dreams of drunken prospectors who are wild enough to brave the hill tribes. They would sleep away the winter, deep in a den, like the small creatures do when the snows are highest. Crack the pod and inhale; you’ll be asleep before you can say good’e’n to me, I swear it.”
“Why do I need to sleep? I just woke up, if this is what you call being awake.” It felt like death, if she was honest. She had no intention of leaving her family behind, not if they were still in the river, fighting for their lives.
Then a tumbler clicked, and she began to cry, suffering through the truth to ask a question she’d already answered. “You didn’t say I was going home. You said I was being taken someplace safe.”
The barge began to shift, and a shadow passed overhead. There were people up on the deck, moving about in preparation for a journey north, though as to any other details Corra wasn’t even willing to guess. She peered through an open hatch, the first rays of dawn spilling down into the hold, spreading light over a crowded mass of barrels, crates, and rolls of acrid cloth.
“I’ll be with you the entire time, but it’s best if you sleep and heal. We’ve nearly five thousand klicks to go, and the less your face is seen, the better. I can blend in. You can’t, and until I know what happened at your wedding, it’s best if we proceed as if the entire valley is your enemy.” Sighing, he clambered to his feet, leaving her thick pile of blankets. She was in a nest of sorts, smelling of fiber and sun, the cloth clean and bland but warm. “Wrap yourself up and breathe well of Ursa, Majesty. We’ve three months and more than a thousand cable islands ahead of us just to reach a place to vanish.”
Lost Kingdom: Book 1 in the Lost Kingdom Series Page 7
