After another few minutes, the exhausted werefox climbed out onto the pebbles and shrugged me off to the ground.
Having thus unceremoniously shed herself of her load, she shook herself vigorously, sending spray all around. It caught the sun, momentarily acquiring a rainbow glow.
I raised my hand, shielding myself from the ice-cold shower, while unwittingly admiring the grace of the creature’s lithe body. What an unusual thing, huge and powerful: a nimble cat, a fox and a lynx all wrapped into one. The mannerisms of a domestic cat; the fluffy tail and the long muzzle of a fox; and the large powerful limbs of a lynx, complete with the little tufts on the tips of her ears.
Stellar’s interface was adamant in its identification of the creature as an “Allys, an A-Morph, class: Bina”. The message was framed with dull yellow denoting the weregirl’s warning level: she presented serious danger even for an organized group of fighters. But despite her Azuric nature — which officially classed her as a monster from over the Edge — she still appeared beautiful and well-proportionate, in perfect harmony with the wildlife around us.
The next moment, she was already back in her human form, standing half-turned to me and wringing her hair dry. The transformation itself had been instant to the point of imperceptible. One moment she was an animal, then she was a girl, just like that.
I forced my gaze off her athletic body, turned round and hurried toward the cliffs. We shouldn’t be forgetting about our pursuers. Unlike me, the girl wasn’t at all protected from their search equipment. I needed to find a place where they wouldn’t be able to detect us, preferably a cave or a destroyed building. Then I could try and connect with my incidental ally. She was definitely sentient which meant we could be mutually useful.
My objective was simple. I had to follow Commander Knox’s orders. Which meant I had to get somewhere where they had a transmitter, contact the City and send them his message. Even though the Convoy seemed to have retreated from Fort Angelo, I doubted that Gnarl would leave them alone. I was more than sure he’d continued jamming their communications while trying to come up with new sneaky plans. He had too much at stake now: if the City ever found out that the legendary Technomancer was back, they would send the Legion to deal with him.
But in order to protect Fort Angelo, I first needed to survive myself. So the werefox’s help might come in very handy. In this cruel and unforgiving world, two was a stronger force than just one.
I found a nice secluded spot under the cliff: a small depression concealed from above by an overhanging ledge and surrounded by thick undergrowth, so you couldn’t see it from the river. To my surprise, I discovered some evidence of human activity inside: a primitive fireplace within a circle of blackened stones and a provident little stash of dry driftwood for kindling. Someone had been here and started the fire very recently — possibly, this season. I had a funny feeling it could have been the Angels’ raiders. This was their territory, after all.
I decided to take a brief break. I peeled off the jumpsuit which I’d pulled on in Evyl’s lab right onto my bare body, and shook the water out of it, checking it for any damage. Although it was supposed to be waterproof and even, in theory, airtight, it had suffered a lot from Evyl’s pulse gun which had burned a large hole in the chest. I also checked my cryptor, the dagger and the Crusher. Surprisingly, it was still in one piece even though it admittedly needed to be stripped, dried and cleaned.
The wolf’s outline on the dagger’s blue blade glowed weakly. So the Fiend was back, then. I hadn’t even noticed when it happened.
I laid out my weapons on a flat rock and changed into some dry clothes that I’d produced out of the extradimensional cryptor in my signet ring. Although we didn’t have much time, I could spare a few minutes to take a break, clean myself up a little, work out an immediate plan of action and try to talk to my unexpected partner. I was also dying with curiosity thinking about the DNA material dropped by Evyl’s dead body, but so far, I’d been making a conscious effort to leave it till later. I had much more pressing matters to take care of.
The girl noiselessly stepped from behind the leaves and perched on a rock opposite me, taut as a string. Her still-wet dark blond hair fell down to her knees, enveloping her like a disheveled cloak.
Finally I could take a good look at her. Her triangular-shaped face was firm with sharp regular features. You could have called it pretty had it not been for her wild green eyes, huge and almond-shaped, which glowed an amazingly pure color of first springtime leaves, mesmerizing and scary in their alien nature.
“Allys,” she broke the silence, touching her chest. “You?” her splayed hand pointed at me.
“Grey,” I said.
So that’s what her name was, then, Allys? Just like the name of the beast she turned into? Or... was it a code name?
“Grey! Grrrrey!” she repeated, as if tentatively tasting the word, then nodded her satisfaction.
“You speak Globish,” I said.
“Yes... Me speak... no, I speak. Need... need time to... to memory?... no, remember. Need time to remember. Speak. Speak more. You. Help. You help me speak.”
“Her speech functions and possibly also the organs of speech have been corrupted, Incarnator. It’s possible that she simply hasn’t had the chance to talk to other people for a very long time.”
“Stel...larrrr?” Vixen touched her own forehead in the place where I had the three-pointed star tattoo. “You? Leg-ion?”
She knew about Stellar. She’d recognized its symbol. She was asking me whether I was from the Legion. That was interesting.
“Me? No, not really,” I replied. “I’m from the City if that’s what you mean. But I’m not a Legionnaire. I’m a tribute from Fenrir clan.”
She slowly nodded, then growled very softly. “No! You... Inca, you. I seen... no, I saw.”
“And who are you?” I asked her point blank.
She fell silent without taking her wary studying gaze off me. “I’m Allys. Re... renegade. Why you help? There,” she waved her hand in the supposed direction of the Convoy. “Why give Azure? To me?”
“I didn't want you to die, that’s all. Also, didn’t you want to break free?”
“Die?” the werefox repeated with a crooked smile. “Allys can’t die. Can’t be killed. Understand? You understand?”
Her speech was improving rapidly. She seemed to remember the language as we spoke, coming up with correct word forms and turns of phrase.
“What do you mean, you can’t be killed?” I asked. “Does that mean you can heal instantly? Or that you can reincarnate once you’re killed, like I do?”
“Yes. No. You’re Stellar,” she tapped a crooked finger on her forehead once again. “Not me. I’m renegade. You helped me. Why?”
I chuckled. “Why, did you want me to leave you there in the cage? Or should I have let those Shivas shoot you at point blank?”
She gave an annoyed little hiss. “You’re Inca,” she said with a weary sigh. “You’re Stel-lar. I’m renegade. Why?”
I just couldn’t’ get what she was driving at. She seemed to be most interested in why I’d helped her out and rescued her from the Rogues’ fire. She seemed to be stressing the fact that I was one of Stellar’s Incarnators. Could it be that A-morphs like herself used to be targeted by Stellar’s missions?
“Do you understand everything I’m saying?” I asked.
She ran a quick pink tongue over her lips and nodded. At the moment, she looked no different from a regular human being: same mannerisms, same body language.
“I’m not a City Inca,” I said. “I’m not with the Legion. I’m on my own. You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
She sniffed, her green eyes momentarily glinting with sarcasm. “Then, you. Who are you? Who are you with? Who you fight?”
“I’m Grey. I’m on my own. We could help each other.”
“Help?” she drawled slowly, as if rolling the word on her tongue. ‘Help... How? Why?”
“We have a
common enemy.”
“No! Stellar!” she hissed again. “Stellar is enemy! I’m not Stellar! Kill Stellar!”
Grey, I’m not sure I like this creature. She has very peculiar facial expressions and unusual motor skills. I can’t predict her emotional reactions. Please be on your guard. We might not be able to react in time.”
Suddenly I realized that I was sitting there half-naked and unarmed within an arm’s reach from a highly dangerous — and possibly, also deranged — creature which could rip my head off my shoulders at a moment’s notice.
I must have mechanically reached for my dagger lying on a rock nearby because Allys, in an imperceptibly fast motion, dashed off her place and grabbed my wrist. I immediately sensed that she was much stronger than I could ever be. She effortlessly pulled my hand away as if playing with a five-year-old child.
“Weak,” she said with a predatory smile. “Slow. Easy kill.”
“I have no intention of killing you,” I said calmly and slowly, staring down the spooky green lanterns of her eyes.
“Me? No one kill me!” she repeated, albeit not so sure this time. “Weird, you. New body? Wolf? Angel? Don’t understand.”
She finally let go of my hand. My wrist was seriously sore from her grasp.
“You helped me. I helped you,” she said. “That’s good. No kill... for now. We speak. Let’s speak.”
She fell silent and noisily drew in the air through her nostrils, then jumped up and looked around desperately, as if sensing something. “Foe. Ship! Above!”
A growing rumbling noise put an end to our conversation. It rose to a hiss; a gust of wind ripped at the treetops. I leapt to my feet. A black dot appeared on the horizon, growing with every second.
Allys thrashed about, hissing like a cornered animal and trying to shrink into the rocky wall.
That wasn’t a drone. Nor the Pilgrim. I could still make them out hovering so high in the sky that I could barely see them. The approaching machine was more like an airmobile zigging through the air. My Binocular Vision allowed me a glimpse of its predatory sharp silhouette, the black steel of its wings and the logo on them: a zigzagging green line which resembled a trident-shaped mountain summit — but if you turned the symbol upside down, it turned into a fanged grin.
Gnarl, as large as life and twice as ugly. Finally he deigned to join the chase. And I was pretty sure that he already had the Pilgrim’s aerial scan results right in front of him.
Which meant we had a few seconds at the most.
I acted on autopilot. My body was screened off — but Allys’ wasn’t. If they spotted her, they’d find us both. Which would be the end.
I leapt onto the girl, pinning her to the ground and pressing my whole body weight over her, trying to shield her from the scanners. At first she tried to fight herself free
“Quiet!” I hissed in her ear. “Don’t move!”
As if realizing that this wasn’t the right moment to resist me, she cuddled up and froze on the ground, her body hot and shivery.
The black shadow of the craft flying at almost zero altitude flitted over us. I sensed the piercing touch of something weird and inhumanly cold, as if an indifferent icy gaze ran over me. My Azure meter twitched, adding a few points and making it perfectly clear that Gnarl was up there on board his black steely bird.
I froze, trying not to breathe.
Chapter 6
THE CRAFT WHOOSHED past right over us. Gradually the sound began to subside, dying out in the distance.
“They’re looking for us,” I whispered into Allys’ disheveled wet hair. “They’re scanning the area. You understand? I’m immune to their scanners, so stay still.”
She startled, then froze again. With her physical strength, shaking me off and darting for dear life was a question of a couple of seconds. Which meant she’d understood me.
Blood was pounding in my temples. What the hell was I doing, trying to save her? Should we split, maybe? Let her go her own way; she might actually distract Gnarl and his headhunters. In the meantime I could get to the nearest settlement under the protection of Impermeability and find a transmitter...
No, not really. I might have had a map but I had zero survival skills for this kind of environment. I had no transportation, either. We had to stick together. That way, I had better chances of survival, of shaking off the chase and ultimately of completing my mission. Now that Gnarl knew who I was, he wouldn’t pussyfoot around. Allys was an awesome fighter — and we had a common foe. I needed to try and talk her over to my side. I needed a team...
After another couple of minutes, the far-off rumbling noise began to grow as the craft returned. The sound kept changing in intensity, louder one moment and weaker the next, as if Gnarl kept circling the area where they’d sighted us last. We kept lying stock still. After several more minutes, the noise finally died away.
He was gone. He hadn’t noticed us.
Big sigh of relief.
“We need to find shelter,” I mouthed. “Do you know the area?”
I lifted myself slightly on my elbows. Allys twisted her body, rolling onto her back. Her face was within a mere inch from mine. Only now had I realized the whole suggestiveness of the situation: there I was, half-dressed, pinning a naked girl to the ground. Not exactly a girl, of course, but in her current guise she was almost indistinguishable from a human.
Strangely enough, I didn’t feel any aversion to her. Her body, hard and taut with muscles, burned my skin like a red-hot heater. Was her body temperature elevated due to her inhuman metabolism?
“Yes. No,” she whispered coarsely in reply to my earlier question. “A map? You have it?”
“Yes, I do have a map.”
“Old ruins. Of a tunnel. Go look.”
“The nearest suitable hiding place is eleven miles away, Incarnator. It’s an old production facility — a robotized factory. Its utility system scheme suggests an underground monorail line which used to transport its production to the nearest cities. Let me see... the line has three tunnels and ten stations. It’s quite possible that the tunnels are still passable — or that you could at least take cover there. I’m going to calculate the route to them now...”
The far-off rumble had finally died away. I let go of the girl. She slowly climbed back to her feet and rearranged her hair. I couldn’t work out the expression in her green gaze. It was as if she was openly appraising me. She touched my shoulder with her free hand and sniffed her discontent.
“Man! Woman,” she added, touching her own chest. “Don’t!” she sniffed again.
I chuckled. Never thought I’d make this creature blush. Apparently, she was much more human than it would appear at first sight.
“Clothes,” she said, covering her chest with one hand and pointing at my cryptor with the other. “Have any?”
Indeed, I had two sets of civilian clothes I’d bought back in Fort Angelo, and a few changes of clean underwear. Allys rejected the T-shirt but did accept the clothes. After about a minute, she reappeared in a neat olive-color jumpsuit zipped up all the way to her throat, which made her almost indistinguishable from a regular human girl.
“Wait. Blood,” she softly touched my face.
Of course. When Evyl had headbutted me back in the trailer, the blow from her Anubis mask had broken my nose and split my forehead. Later, the blood had caked over the wounds but now they’d reopened with all the running and jumping around.
Allys brough her hand to her lips, then slowly ran it over my face. Her moist hand seemed to erase the nagging pain. I felt the blood stop as my wounds closed.
“This is unbelievable, Incarnator! Her saliva — and possibly her blood as well — possess extremely powerful regeneration properties! Now I understand why she’s virtually unkillable. Any damage to her organs and tissues is restored faster than her body can die! This looks very similar to class-Gold genetic modifications... possibly, even higher.”
The scattering of the black dots in the sky was still there — but
the Pilgrim was now gone, probably climbing even higher, out of my Binocular Vision's range. We shouldn’t stay in one place: we needed to escape the Orion’s scanning eye ASAP.
I turned to Allys. “I’ve laid the route. I’ll be showing the way. It’s eleven miles. Could you... er... piggyback me again?”
“No,” she snapped. “Not enough Azure. Very little. We’ll run. It’s not far.”
We got there in an hour. Miko very luckily led us to an old road, almost completely overgrown but still in one piece. Running along it was a sheer pleasure. Predictably, Allys was faster than me, quick and agile.
The old factory turned out to be a group of long-collapsed buildings. Their ruins resembled smashed egg shells. The crackled walls had collapsed; the floors had caved in; the steel hangars had crumbled, reduced to the rusty skeletons of their frameworks. The greedy limbs of vegetation had claimed the ruins, carpeting them all over; trees grew through the cracked concrete of the driveways.
The Enchanter (Project Stellar Book 2): LitRPG Series Page 7
