‘No, Highness. It is not!’
‘Don’t you think that is just a tiny bit weird?’
Hayden held out his hand, Feebru passed him the sensor and he looked it over carefully.
‘Odd. Very odd.’
‘What is, Highness?’
‘Well, of course I’m no expert on this thing but you’d think something like this would work. It looks brand new. The power’s on. There’s no wear and tear. Where did you get it?’
‘It is from Inventory.’
‘Was it given to you or did you take one of many?’
Feebru was a little confused as to the why Hayden was asking.
‘I was assigned it from many, Highness. Why?’
‘If Kel was around here, this thing should show us. Yes?’
‘Of course Highness, and if she were quite a way off, too.’
‘Then why isn’t it?’
‘The forest is interfering with it perhaps?’ Hayden nodded, not having thought of that.
‘Or, Highness, it is - broken?’
Handing it back, Hayden again watched the grazing birds as they raised their heads up and down nervously as the wind rose about them.
‘Maybe?’
‘You’d like for me to do something, Highness?’ Feebru asked obediently, and sure that Hayden would ask something of him.
‘Yes. When we get back I want you to check all the other scanners.’
‘I do not mean to question you, Highness, but check all of the others. I do not understand?’
Hayden twirled the tracking unit in his hands, looking at it closely.
‘Just to see if they’re not all broken?’
‘All?’
‘A feeling I’ve had that something is not right and it’s a feeling I’ve had now for a while.’ Hayden rolled his eyes. ‘Other than how different my life is now. Something else has not felt right.’
Feebru wasn’t sure what Hayden meant but he agreed to follow up on his request. He then abruptly moved stealthily down the lake’s beach a few metres, keeping his body as low to the ground as possible. Hayden’s response was to follow suit.
‘What is it?’ he whispered as they crouched on the pebbled beach. The Kuhlian knelt by the clear shore and pointed to a stand of what Hayden regarded as normal sized oak-like trees a hundred meters away from them just off of the lake’s beach as the wind rustled the leaves.
‘I think, Highness, that we are not alone.’
They both stayed quiet, watched and waited.
There was movement in the bracken underbrush amongst the smaller trunks and Hayden’s mind flashed back to the Fylax again.
They didn’t have to wait long for an answer as suddenly out into the clearing a person fell, followed by an awkwardly hovering airpad.
‘Kel!’ Hayden shouted with such relief, immediately running to her very closely followed by Feebru.
‘Kel!’ He shouted again excitedly,
‘Where’ve you been?’
She didn’t look happy and Hayden’s face dropped.
‘Where have I been?’ she shouted as he neared her, her pretty face dirty again and her hair straggly. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Looking for you! What happened?’
Kel gave Feebru a smile and talked directly to him, pretending Hayden wasn’t there.
‘I came through that tree cave, just. After outrunning a Fylax, I ended up crashing in that bracken. The accelerator stuck. I was trying to get the airpad out.’ She then turned her attention to Hayden. ‘And what are you looking at, Earth-boy?’
He looked away. ‘Ease up, Kel. I’m just glad you’re okay. Can we leave it at that, go back and be friends again?’
Kel tweezed burrs from her hair and clothing with her fingers.
‘Why, Highness, I am so sorry I caused you any trouble,’ she patronized, paying particular attention to enunciating the title she was clearly having trouble with. Hayden looked sternly at her.
‘No trouble at all. We just almost killed ourselves trying to rescue you!’ He started waving his arms about in frustration. ‘That thing in there! Not to mention that I’ve never ridden one of those bike-things before and judging by your appearance, I guess you’re not too good with one either?’
Feebru looked between Hayden and Kel. He didn’t feel up to mediating an argument but it looked as if there was certainly one beginning.
‘I told you that the accelerator stuck.’
A smile appeared on Hayden’s face as he looked at his newly rediscovered disheveled friend, then one on Feebru’s, and they both looked at Kel. She looked directly at Hayden, her lips pursed defiantly. Hayden’s smile widened then both he and Feebru watched as Kel’s thinned lips began to plump as a little grin crept across her face until she blurted out a short laugh. She looked at her dirty arms and her newly ripped clothes.
‘I think I need the medi bath.’
Feebru watched both of them make up.
‘When we get back, you have a lot of explaining to do, Hayden,’ Kel commanded. Hayden agreed and that he would do his best to try.
‘Good,’ Feebru observed. ‘Now that we are all friends again, we must ready our return, for the Grand Chancellor is most serious about our departure. ’
‘I think, more to the point, we have that gecko on some serious steroids to deal with.’
‘You are right, Highness,’ Feebru agreed, as he gracefully stepped astride his transport, assuming correctly that Hayden was referring to the Fylax. Kel looked at Hayden weirdly as if she was trying to figure out just what made him so special and was clearly not yet at ease with his apparent ‘station’ in life. Had he known that was what she was thinking he could have told her that he felt the same.
Feebru was now hovering by Hayden who held out his hand and was about to help Kel aboard his transport but she pushed his arm away.
‘I just thought.’
She shot Hayden a glance as she jumped aboard her own and in one swift movement locked in her feet and started moving swiftly up the hill.
‘I can do well without a boy’s help,’ she called back. ‘I can do well without anyone’s help.’
‘Obviously,’ Hayden mumbled watching her power off.
‘Kel, you must return!’ Feebru called urgently.
But she kept riding up toward the cavern.
‘She did not hear me?’
‘Oh,’ said Hayden. ‘She heard you alright.’
Feebru looked concernedly around them and back up to the cavern where the Fylax dwelled.
‘She’ll come back. She wouldn’t go in there without us.’
Feebru shot a fretful look at Hayden and he thought for a moment that perhaps she might. ‘KEL!’ He shouted at the top of his lungs.
‘I must implore you now not to shout so loudly, Highness.’
Hayden didn’t ask why, he just noticed that Kel had stopped about thirty metres from the cavern entrance. Feebru, now quite agitated, kept glancing at the wide plains around them and skyward.
‘There, see. She’s coming back.’ Hayden happily proclaimed.
‘No, I fear she is not.’
Kel looked as if she was about to return but even if she wanted to, she couldn’t. Her airpad was rising and tilting from side to side violently.
‘What’s happening?’
‘It seems, Highness, that her less than delicate arrival has damaged her airpad. She will have to ride with me.’
‘KEL!’ Hayden shouted again, louder this time over the rising wind. ‘KEL!’
‘Highness, we must not shout.’
Hayden stopped when he saw the worry etched on his friend’s face. Feebru tore up the hill as fast as an airpad could travel and then, after scanning the area Hayden saw why he did. As Kel was thrown about on her airpad, the sounds of her distress had attracted the Fylax, the snout of its massive head now emerging from the darkness of the cavernous tree, testing the air. As he watched in horror, unexpectedly he felt something ever so lightly touch his shoulder then his hair
and his face.
Rain.
He looked up. He hadn’t noticed the sky had filled with dark brooding cloud. The Fylax could soon move about freely as the light was now low enough for it to do so. Filled with an intense fear for Kel’s safety, Hayden jumped on his vehicle and made his way as fast as possible toward her. The pad abruptly moved sideways as a strong crosswind buffeted him.
The storm was building rapidly and the vast clearing surrounded by the massive trees with fused trunks formed a bowl for the tempest’s wind to gather speed with nowhere to dissipate and it slowed his progress considerably. Wiping the increasingly heavy rain away from his eyes, he noticed that, unexpectedly, Feebru was not heading toward Kel at all but to the right away from the cavern entrance.
That’s when Hayden saw them.
A pack of animals, he counted at least six, not as giant as the Fylax but still very big. They looked like huge Axolotls with longer, thicker, far more powerful legs and they were loping quickly toward Kel. Feebru was trying to divert their attention by waving his hands about and zipping across in front of them back and forth. A couple of them snapped at his heels with their wide toad-like mouths, barking strangely and angrily but not straying from the course they’d set. Hayden knew what he had to do. Again he pushed forward solidly on the handlebars and fought the crosswinds as he moved as quickly as was possible for him toward Kel. Did she know what was happening? He thought.
The Fylax was now fully out of the cave and stalking her.
It lay as low as it could in the longer grass at the top of the hill, its sheer size making it easy for Hayden to see, but not someone being bucked about on a busted airpad.
The low-slung beast crept almost undetectably forward with the rain pelting its black scales causing them to reflect the ever darkening sky. As the violent wind whipped the long grass against its flanks, it broke its outline, camouflaging it further.
Poor Kel was unaware that creeping death approached her with a crooked and heartless smile.
Hayden shouted a warning but the strong wind carried his voice uselessly away. Pressing forward again, his airpad sped up, fighting well against the gale. He could see the glistening bulk of the dark giant in the grass approaching his friend. Abruptly, Kel’s airpad’s bucking stopped and she and it fell to the ground. Hayden saw Feebru approaching but he was still quite far away, the creatures he was trying to hold at bay not taking the slightest interest in him but for the occasional annoyed snap.
Hayden shouted again to Kel as she lay on the muddying ground, peering through the rain toward the cave entrance. She looked in the opposite direction and was terrified by the sight of the approaching demonic axolotl-dog-toads just barely behind the Kuhlian. Horrified, she looked back toward the cave with desperate need for cover and for a heart stopping second, Hayden thought that she would run to it and straight into the bloody, crushing jaws of the waiting Fylax.
She didn’t. Hooking her matted, soaked hair behind her ears and away from her face as best she could, she strained to look through the scratchy wall of windswept rain toward the cavern.
Lightning flashed through the howling wind, illuminating something very briefly but indistinct to her in the long grass.
Thunder rolled. The storm was directly above them.
Kel remained still and stared at the something in the grass directly ahead. Her wet hair fell back over her eyes again and as she pulled it away, lightning cracked again and this time as the blue-white light passed over the wet black scales, to her horror she saw it.
In reflex, she turned and ran away as quickly as she could straight down the slope to where she remembered Hayden to have been. The slippery ground caused her to slide and fall, slowing her progress and he could feel her panic.
Hayden pressed against the handlebars yet again, as hard as he could without flipping the craft. The wind that felt almost insurmountable to him was allowing Feebru, from the direction he was approaching, to move with it and he was closing in on Hayden and Kel’s position quickly but still only just ahead of the thundering herd, his efforts to distract the creatures utterly futile.
Hayden kept the Fylax in as sharp a contrast as possible against the grassy background as he surfed the buffeting winds toward Kel, who looked hurt and the massive beast knew it. Pointless to hide now, it let out a deep roar as it lifted its muscular forelimbs off the ground and slammed them down again angrily, the heavy rain washing the blood of its last victim from its jaws.
Hayden was waiting for the lethal tongue to shoot across the grass and pull his friend into its putrid mouth when he was startled to see Feebru almost upon him with the snorting, drooling beasts running closely behind.
‘KEL!’ Hayden yelled as he neared her.
‘HAYDEN!’ She screamed back.
The Fylax’s ground pounding was more furious as Feebru and the trailing horde approached. Little Kel was in the middle, the Fylax to her right and the six horrendous creatures rushing toward her just behind the brave Kuhlian on her left, with Hayden racing up the middle, all trying to get to her first. The Fylax roared again over the thunder, even more deafeningly powerful than before and the other creatures stopped still in their tracks. In their haste for the bucking blonde morsel that was Kel, they hadn’t seen it. Kicking their powerful hind legs and stamping the soft ground with their forelimbs they sent huge divots of mud and grass flying, a mutated barking sound filling the air. They were angrier now as Kel was to be their kill.
Hayden rode the wind expertly, nearing the stranded Devonian as she stood frozen with fear. Feebru zipped back and forth in front of the frenzied animals again in a noble quest to sate their interest. As he was close enough, Hayden couldn’t tell if it were blood or mud streaking in a thick line down Kel’s forehead and across her face. ‘KEL!’ He yelled again, though it was muffled amid the swirling wind.
‘HAYDEN!’
The Fylax had stopped its roaring and was lying as still as a stone. Hayden was only a few meters away now and it was lucky he was.
He sped in and swept up Kel just as the huge monster broke its rigid pose and lunged at her in one swift, horrifyingly powerful leap.
Feebru too had shot out of the way of the stampeding herd just as Hayden scooped her up, placing her awkwardly in front of himself as they heard the terrible sound of the Fylax colliding with the other creatures.
‘Make for the cave!’ Feebru shouted riding up alongside as Hayden looked back and saw the Fylax being mauled by the smaller monsters. Though terrifying, Hayden marveled at seeing seven huge alien beasts fighting for their lives with their massive claws and jaws clashing in the storm. Their great dark glistening masses illuminated by flashes of lightning. It was truly awesome. With Kel propped in front of Hayden, all three raced up the hill toward the cavern as thunder resonated throughout the clearing and the vicious combatants took no notice of the three tiny beings as they fled.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
The cavern entrance was a welcoming sight. Inside and out of the weather, it was quiet but for the wind carrying the muffled sounds of the tempest that raged outside in the storm. They turned on their headlamps.
‘Kel, you’re hurt!’ Hayden realised that it was blood that coursed gently down the right side of her face. A small cut above her forehead revealed when she brushed aside her matted hair.
‘I’m fine.’
‘We need to stop and check you over,’ Hayden insisted.
‘Do not stop. Keep moving - please?’ Kel, her voice shaking, pleaded.
‘Kel is right,’ Feebru interjected. ‘We do not have much time.’
She locked her arms around Hayden’s waist, resting against him solidly.
‘Feebru, what were those other things?’
The Kuhlian looked distracted so Hayden asked again.
‘Cro-Ag, Highness.’
Hayden gulped. He understood completely why the first-mate had given in so easily. They were terrifying.
Feebru looked bewildered.
‘Feebr
u?’
‘Yes, Highness?’
‘You’re worried about something else?’
Despite what he’d said just moments before, Feebru stopped. He scrutinized the cavern ahead, illuminated with the two round circles of light from their headlights. He scanned behind them and all around.
‘Feebru?’ Hayden called out quietly, sensing some unease.
‘Highness.’
‘What is it? ’
‘ This is not the path we took.’
Hayden couldn’t tell, he’d barely made it out alive before. He’d only seen what was directly in front of him.
‘Where are we then? ’
‘Another path - that I do not know?’
Hayden cursed under his breath.
‘I will find the way, Highness.’
‘You’d better. Firstly, Kel needs help and I can’t miss returning home.’
Feebru bowed his head gently and moved forward on his airpad only to round the next corner and stop.
‘What now?’ Kel called, seeing the Kuhlian’s unmoving headlight.
‘The path. It ends here,’ Feebru revealed disappointedly. ‘We must return to correct ourselves.’
Hayden Joined Feebru and looked for himself. He saw another smaller cavern leading to nowhere. They were both about to turn back when they heard the horrendous bark of a Cro-Ag in the tunnel.
‘They’ve killed the Fylax! We’re trapped?’
‘No, Highness, look. ’ Feebru positioned his airpad so that the headlight shone at the tiniest degree off angle. A smaller tunnel, a path disguised previously with shadow was revealed. Hayden didn’t need to think. He pressed forward and made directly for it, not wanting to face one of those things, or all, for if they had beaten a beast as powerful as the Fylax, then he knew that, unarmed as they were, they would stand no chance at all. They proceeded onto their uncertain new path with caution. Kel moaned. The thin cut on her head was quite deep and had started to bleed again. Feebru rode up behind Hayden who was stopped. The Kuhlian’s headlight joining the other to illuminate a small cavern that looked like it was covered in grey fungus with elliptical blue green growths twice the size of basketballs jutting from it. They were scattered all over the walls and floor, almost covering the entire space. Hayden cautiously moved inside and reaching out, he lightly touched one that was closest to him as he hovered passed it. It had the consistency of overly set gelatin and a marbled, silvery sheen ran across it.
The Blake Equation- Discovery Page 24
