Suddenly I felt warmth fill my palm and flush up my arm, turned to find the source of this instant comfort and smiled faintly up at Ohre. The miner looked through and into me until I could see he knew exactly how I felt, that he could feel it too.
Kahne had stepped away from our little group and was inspecting a fat-leafed bush higher than her head. “Ahoy, have any of you seen the twins?”
Brushing aside my annoyance with her former mention of the camp suddenly being “our cave”, I kept my tone carefully neutral. “If they’ve gone to take a leak we can’t wait for them. The signal’s getting weaker,” I added after another glance at the scanner. “Keep a fresh eye, Kahne. I can’t watch everything.” She nodded, already stepping further into the trees but within eyeshot. It was amusing to me how quickly she assumed her role as protector. She had always been a sensitive, timid thing on Datura 3, unless pushed, but now seemed determined to prove herself.
Arvex wasn’t finished making his point, obviously, finding it a necessity to throw in, “At least someone’s taking my advice around here and enjoying themselves.”
“Give it a rest, Royal. Only one who cares to hear you speak ain’t in her right mind,” Ohre gruffly called back to him. Arvex grumbled several hissing threats the rest of us easily ignored. I sent a silent nod of thanks to the miner whom I was beginning to rely on more than my own blood and gills.
Much as I had suspected, Kahne walked no further than half a fathom before the twins leapt out of the tree, screaming. On any other occasion, the eight-star-year-old child might have already exposed their vital organs to the hungry beasts watching us. But she had also been expecting their foolery. Having covered their faces in mud and stuck twigs and leaves in their clothes they looked scarcely Hunan. Jymee was crying in Hanea’s skirts out of fear for his sister, and this only incensed Kahne’s frustration.
Whacking them both on the head with the hilt of her scythe she shouted, “You two are the most water-logged, pitch filled, wreen turds I’ve ever known! Don’t scare my brother like that!”
“Aw, come on, girlie,” Menai held up his hands to ward off another attack.
“We were just having a bit of fun!” Gem added. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Ahoy!” I shouted over them, though I was grateful the twins had distracted the others from my own conflict. I meant to tell them that we needed to keep moving, if we wanted to cover any ground before moonrise. Their faces turned to mine, wide-eyed with expectation, yet it wasn’t their approval that had me so frightened now. Ohre’s eyes narrowed on me as I gaped and my mouth tried to form the words. What I was seeing didn’t make sense. A savage horde of creatures was rushing toward us in a black blur, down from the cliff edge and straight for us. No beast should look this intelligent yet so savage.
“Qeya?” Ohre whispered under his breath and then on instinct he glanced over his shoulder to follow the trail of my gaze and instantly began to switch parts on his gauntlet.
“Run!” Arvex shouted, as the creatures’ cries fell upon our ears. Jymee screeched as Arvex hefted the baby of our group in his arms and, dragging Hanea by her hand, he darted past the miner and headed for the trees without looking back.
The twins pulled two identical looking sharp-toothed jawbones, still marked by blood and grit. I could have shouted at those two for carrying something that would obviously scream for the attention of every predator a fathom away, but there wasn’t time. There was only an instant before the swarm caught up to us.
Bruv and Kahne double backed us as another defense protecting our king, scythes at the ready. As they passed, I watched Bruv activate his, so that a low, humming electricity sound emitted from the ancient curved blade. Holding my blade aloft, I glanced at the miner at my side and all last traces of prejudice fled my conscience. Because of him we had lived. He caught my gaze and emotions he usually kept hidden flashed in his dark orbs.
I could almost feel the foul breath of the pack ready to attack us and faced them. Going through the quick mental list I had once studied in preparation for a moment such as this, I took my opponent in. They were almost as tall as us, awkward in their hunched-over state, running on their shorter forelegs and covered in thick coarse fur. Yet their faces were lighter in comparison, short jaws framed by thin blade-like teeth, and their nonexistent noses flared from exertion beneath golden intelligent eyes. Their screams raided over us before they did, and I wondered what the miner had planned, otherwise I might have rushed out to meet them.
Quick study of the gauntlet proved my suspicion but I wondered why he was taking so long to blast the aliens. His eyes darted back and forth from the trees to the pack facing us. I readied myself, breathed deeply and held onto my energies that seemed to be going a league a heartbeat. I never used my gifts except to heal, yet there was a new memory in the back of my mind, of another use for my Orona gift. I shuddered to think of resorting to use it. The last Royal who had reversed their healing powers to destroy went insane.
I felt as though I were about to jump out of my skin. The handle of my retractable blade nearly cut into my palm but I was ready for the fight to come. We had made it this far. We knew we would face untold dangers out here. Only now I wished we had left Hanea and Jymee behind. I should have known they might be a hindrance if we ran into trouble. Now I had their lives to worry about as well as the rest of our group. We had to survive, no matter what came.
Golden intelligent eyes narrowed in on me. As the beast reached out with its sharp claws to swipe at my head, I ducked, and sliced open its belly. And then I fell into the dance. I had never fought something trying to kill me before. Ohre had basically taken care of the monsters from the cave, so somehow this felt different. These beings weren’t here defending their territory, but to tear us apart. So I pivoted, turned and cut vulnerable places at their necks and bellies, until I grew used to the spray of their blood. Behind me I caught flashes of Bruv and Kahne flanking us and aiding in the attack.
Ohre had disappeared, I realized when I jumped over the creatures and looked for him. As I came down I brought my blade in a wide circle, then drew it in tightly. The animals weren’t stopping for me, though…they were chasing the vulnerable ones behind us. So I made myself move faster.
The temptation rose up in my mind again, memory of a distant ancestress reminding me what I had the potential to do. Steeling my mind shut, I refused and made myself move faster. A distant scream was what brought me out of the scythe dance. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female but I knew it was one of mine. A cry escaped my lips and with fresh anger I attacked the hoard. Bruv and Kahne seemed to be doing the same and I could only hope the twins and Arvex would protect the others.
The pack had to be thirty strong at least, I reasoned, for no matter how many I cut down there seemed to be more. I couldn’t understand their reason for wanting to hunt us. Perhaps we had come into their territory? They couldn’t be so hungry for meat they would imagine they could take us down, could they?
My arm ached with the force exerted with every thrust and arc. My limbs were an extension of this blade, I remember my father telling me. I knew several claws had pierced my jumpsuit and ripped my skin, but I hardly felt it at the moment.
When it seemed I couldn’t go on, I heard a voice call over our heads, a booming sound over the nightmare that had found us.
“NOW!” Ohre’s voice was our only warning and I ducked until I was flat on the ground, hoping the others would see and do the same. With only a beep as warning, an electric charge buzzed over us, swept in a blue-colored arc across the thinly forested mountainside and sliced the rest of the beats in half.
I was on my feet as soon as I felt the prickling heat pass, stumbled over mangled limbs and lifeless aliens until I saw the first of my crewmates. Kahne was covered by the beasts and struggling to get out from under them. Retracting my blade and hooking it back onto my belt, I scrambled to help her, pulling heavy torsos and limbs off her. I drew her into my arms as soon as I saw
the flutter of her purple eyes.
“You’re alive!” I gasped for breath, still feeling the thrum of my boiling blood.
Bruv trudged up to us then, his blade still glowing until he pulled his gift back inside his skin. His eyes were worried until I revealed Kahne, and then to my surprise he dropped to his knees and hugged her with a ferocity I had not seen in him before. She sobbed into his chest and I saw tears squeezed out of Bruv’s eyes as well. She was only eight and far too young to fight like this. But this was exactly the sort of war we were being groomed for, I remembered. Only against highly skilled warriors, not this brutal alien warfare.
Assured they were fine, I spotted Ohre standing alone off to the side, bent over from his efforts with his plasma beam. If I was correct in guessing what he had used to save our lives, then it had required a lot more energy than what was stored in a power cell. So where did he get the extra fuel? He glanced up and held my gaze for one intense moment before ducking his head again.
On either side of him, the twins held their bloodied alien jawbones and bent to retrieve trophies from the beasts we had been forced to take down. I shivered at how natural their mud-painted faces looked.
Reaching Arvex, I gasped when I saw a stoic Hanea silently sobbing over the limp figure in my brother’s arms. Jymee’s small body was slashed across the belly, but the wound had not penetrated too deeply just yet. Trembling, I brushed past Hanea, catching the hopelessness trapped in her orbs, and fell to my knees beside my brother.
“Just do it, sis. Whatever you have to do!” Arvex’s voice broke as he spoke and I saw how bloodied he was, his twin miniature scythes lying on the earth on either side of him. Laying my hands over the wound, I ignored Kahne’s cry behind me as she realized her baby brother was almost dead, and dug my fingertips through his black blood.
Shutting my eyes, I recalled my lessons, the ones the true Orona had given me before she was murdered. My thoughts were still jumbled from the recent addition of my mother’s memories. I already had most of mine since my mentor had passed on when I was a child, and I suppose her presence in my mind was what made me act so much older. The line of the Orona was dark and deep as the turbulent seas of home world. Our power was great and our burden was therefore much greater. Healing came easily to me. I had no sooner begun the process than it was over. Thank the heavens I hadn’t given into my mad relative and reversed my gift to take down the attacking beasts. One of our earlier ancestors hadn’t been able to handle the burden of war. In the age when miners tried to join us on land for the first time, she reversed her power. It was her voice in my head just then, tempting and showing me flashes of fire, of bodies bursting apart from the inside out, of whole armies laid waste by the force of her will. She had never been able to heal again after she used her power to destroy. I believe that was what drove her to kill herself.
My mentor was a true orona. My father’s sister only used her gift to make others well. If she had used her full potential, could she have stopped the invasion, I wondered. And then I wondered what I was truly capable of.
Jymee coughed on his own blood, but at least his flesh was mended, though tender for now. I knew we weren’t going to search anymore today. It was time to turn back and take refuge once again. Next time I wouldn’t take anyone with us who might not be able to defend themselves.
After gathering our wits together, we walked on in filed pairs. Ohre scanned the trees and I the screen leading to our last link to home. Our walk back was slower and much more guarded than the initial search had been. Now that we knew what surprises this valley had to offer, we weren’t about to make the same mistakes twice. I couldn’t help but to check the scanner once again, the fear over what we just endured now translated into my fears for the shuttle crew. If we had barely been able to fend them off how could the Pioneer survive this wilderness without a healer?
“Signal’s moving and it will soon be out of power. This isn’t good.” His eyes met mine, hand linking through mine even though it was still sprayed by the creature’s blood. It amazed me that in spite of everything that had just happened I still felt a rush of euphoria spread from our fingertips. Lacing up our arms, it seemed to build on a connection that was only just beginning to solidify.
“You twist your metal too much, Navigator. Let your worries be for now. It’s been a fair day for battle. Give your waters a rest.”
Shivering at the title that rightfully belonged to my father, I huffed. “I’m not the Navigator, Ohre.”
“Don’t worry about the shuttle. If there’re any survivors, you know they would bring the beacon with them. We’ll find them another day.”
Biting my lip, I stared ahead. “This place is so awful… Much more dangerous than I really believed. You know I always wanted to go with the crews, pretty much begged them to let me ascend three years early…” I glanced back over my shoulder. The youngest three had relaxed again somewhat thanks to the twins’ constant pestering. Arvex held Jymee in his capable arms, as the child slept. Hanea kept up beside him, her gaze filled with worry that she hid whenever the others turned to speak to her. Watching them I couldn’t help but feel I had already failed somehow. I should have known better than to take the little one along. And Arvex had been so worried about his mate, he should have stayed behind to guard them as well.
“You are a good leader, Qeya. You would make a good orona,” Ohre said as if he could read my inner doubts.
My eyes widened. “How did you know I was going to be the Healer?” His gaze brushed over my features, studying them in a way not even Tamn had ever done.
“I just know,” he replied and my glare prompted him to betray more. “When I was a boy, they made me learn the workings of third deck, as there weren’t much good I could do down below yet. I did nothing special, just cooked and kept the parts working on the shuttles. Most of Brien’s clan made a point not to mingle with you lot. We miners never cared much for your Royal ways. We have our own chiefs and the clan way of steering things. But I was always too curious for me own good. So, when I was up on third deck, I did me duty, but I also listened to what them other Royals had to say.” Almost as an afterthought he shifted his gaze to my red hair and smiled. “I saw you more than once, Qeya. I’ve seen you when you think others are not looking.”
My weary eyes widened, lips twitching. “Are you sure your gears are working properly? Most boys don’t watch girls like that. It isn’t polite.” His eyes lingered on my mouth and heat flooded beneath my marred skin. The only downside to being what I am is my own wounds heal much more slowly, even with my gift.
“It is forbidden for a miner to approach a royal unless summoned. I could never find a way to speak to you before. But you were the only thing more beautiful than the heavens. How could I not look?”
How could he say these things when he must have felt what I almost gave into, when he knew what I could become? In that moment I felt the first layer of my training rush away, never to be reclaimed again. I would never fight the way his words made me feel.
Ohre nudged me then, changing the subject. “Let me have a look at that scanner. I might be able to make it last longer for you.” As I handed it to him, I wondered how we had been so star-blessed to have the miner with us. We would have been dead a dozen times over if it hadn’t been for him. When he noticed my smile his mouth twisted into a wicked smirk.
“See something you like?”
“Just making sure you don’t break anything.”
“I’ve been known to mend anything, if you’ll let me, Navigator.”
VI: MISSING
On the tenth day since we had arrived on this hostile world, after yet another dangerous attempt to hunt down the missing shuttle crew, we made it back to our camp just before the moon covered the land with a pitch-black veil. I stood outside the cave on the ledge that overlooked the valley because I could not stand another minute inside with the others.
Arvex had agreed to remain at the cave with Hanea and Jymee while the rest of us we
nt out searching. It was clear his mate couldn’t handle another run-in with our alien friends, and as for Jymee, he had found more rocks to color the walls with and took to exploring the tunnels we came from. Every day I watched my brother transform from the spoiled burdened heir to a legacy he didn’t want, to a capable adult. He seemed content to let me lead the search while watching over the morale of our group. But the closer he tied himself to this place, the further I felt from him. We had always worked together, even when I did most of the work. Now I couldn’t help the loneliness I felt among them.
My eyes scanned the treetops and I believed if I looked hard enough, my heart could call out to Tamn’s. He had to be alive, I reasoned, because I couldn’t accept a life without him in it.
When Arvex had gotten on my last gill and my parents overbearing, it had been Tamn who made me laugh through my troubles. Like his younger sister Hanea, he had the silvery complexion of his House, except his hair was purely silver and not the more common platinum blend. Growing up, we joked that we were both the outcasts of our noble families. Tamn made life bearable.
Giving up on them would be like saying he was dead. The others were beginning to lose hope, beginning to get too comfortable in the new life we were forced into. For the first time our lives weren’t regimented by the adults. And I reasoned it was acceptable until we found a way back among the heavens. I hadn’t given up hope we would find the shuttle and with it, build our way off of this rock.
The hostile world was hot and sticky here within the mountain range. The high peaks spanned the whole land as far as our eyes could see, circling around the dark forest until the mist clouded their never-ending trail. With the endless ocean on its other side of a sheer drop and only a series of underwater caves linking the two climates, I couldn’t help but feel trapped. Perhaps we should have taken our chances with the sea, I had so often thought. We had all come from the sea, were born in water as a matter of fact. It was our first mother in so many ways, even if the water tasted differently here. Oddly enough I would have felt safer in that world below than this one.
Qeya (Heaven's Edge Novellas Book 1) Page 6
