Submantle- The Alpha Key

by Patrick Lane

  “What about the city guard?” Nifty asked. “Slagg dammit, Rocktower can’t be treated this way, even if it is an unsanctioned Helix.”

  “They be no help, lad,” Smoath responded. “The green liveried ones, we be calling them greenbacks, they be poking their noses into the city foundries and factories lately. Rumor has it they are beginning to hold sway amongst the councils. Most seem happy to monitor the goings-on in the city, keeping to themselves. This be the first mention of trouble I’ve heard. What have you Rockers been up to, to stir up such a wasp's nest?”

  Nifty and Lulu locked stares. They both knew it had something to do with the search for the Key.

  “I don’t know, but I intend to get to the bottom of it before we return to the trains,” Nifty said.

  “The delve-trains are gone already,” Lulu told him. “They couldn’t afford to get caught up with the dreadnaught crew, and we need to go too. Scotty ordered us both to Cardon’s Break, just over one ring down the Helix. Belle knows a little-used dock where we should be able to board safely. We have four hours to get there.”

  “A hundred miles through the Helix? Along the forest roadways? At night?” Smoath queried in quick succession. “This Helix not be like Rocktower, lass. Although the plants and animals be re-seeded, it still be a dangerous trip. You know it be treated as a dumping ground for genetic mistakes and troublesome animals in times gone by.”

  “Dross,” Nifty exhaled as he changed jackets and slipped on his helmet. “This can’t just be about Scotty and me. Not many would willingly incur Rocktower’s wrath. I think all Rangers may be in danger.”

  “Slagg,” he added under his breath, before mounting Snort and turning to Master Smoath, who had turned his attention to the projectile weapon. “Sorry sir. Please take a portion of the airiron to pay for the doors—”

  As Nifty spoke the words something about Smoath’s kill cane caught his attention. There, embossed on the head, nearly worn smooth with age, was a crest: two R’s back to back, separated by a stylized ring. Rion’s Ring? Here in Ragnatex? The image was burned into his skull after his meeting with Ink. Was Smoath a member of a secret society or was it a mere keepsake?

  “Already done,” Smoath replied smugly, interrupting his train of thought. “And you might want to hire a guide to get you to Cardon’s Break. It’ll not be a pleasant trip through the forests, even for Rangers like yourself.”

  “Thank you, Master Smoath,” Lulu replied, jumping onto Buttar’s back. “But unless you have someone available immediately, we must be on our way.”

  “Tatum,” the old man cackled. “Would you care for a trip to Cardon?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  They had been galloping in the darkness for two hours, making better time than Nifty had expected. A sleeting rain had begun a dozen or so miles back, but it failed to slow their momentum or dampen their spirits. Despite Nifty’s initial reluctance, Tatum had proved herself a tremendous asset to their small party. While nowhere near as fast as Snort and Buttar, she managed to keep a steady, loping pace, veering off the little-used forest trail every now and again; her terrible laugh of discovery as she dealt with over half a dozen beasts had been quickly followed by angry bellows or anguished cries.

  According to reports from the dusters, there were no signs of the cycles either behind them or on the main roadways. That didn’t mean they weren’t being followed, though. It wouldn’t take the greenbacks long to figure out which direction they took—it was very difficult to lose a pursuer in a Helix as the only realistic options for flight were up or down the spiral.

  “We should be halfway there by my calculations,” Lulu called from Buttar’s back as the ram launched over a tree root much taller than it was.

  The beast was holding up quite impressively—the gashes on its haunches remarkably well-healed considering it had only rested for a day. Snort ran around the same root, lacking the nimble leaps of its fellow mount, yet still keeping to a brisk, indefatigable pace.

  Their flight from the platform city hadn’t gone anywhere near as smoothly as they’d hoped and Nifty’s arm still bore the result of a narrow escape. Even now, as his left hand gripped the saddle’s pommel, he could feel the tingling sensation that had left it virtually useless for a good hour. But the pain in his body was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.

  Leaving Smoath behind, with a thousand unanswered questions about Rion’s ring swirling in his brain, and a promise that the bat’s upgrades would be delivered to Rocktower, they had taken off with Tatum leading the way.

  The dusters had alerted them to a squad of approaching machines, forcing them to take a detour to a platform above before making their way back down to the lowest level. Unfortunately, once they descended on the hydro-lift they were met on the lowest platform by nearly two-dozen greenback guards, all riding on the same three-wheeled machines he’d seen at the Gears.

  “Dross,” Lulu said as they were spotted on the lift. “They have the rifles and the smaller hand held projectile weapons as well.”

  She looked over at Nifty, assessing his saddle and jacket. “They send out a disc—thing. It’s wicked fast. Keep your bat up between you and the guards, let’s not give them a chance to get their bearings. Turn on your jacket’s heat deflectors, just in case.”

  As she spoke, Nifty saw something that had previously escaped his notice: Lulu was wearing his pendant. He caught just the briefest glimpse of it when she leaned forward to make an adjustment to Buttar’s saddle.

  Lulu looked up just in time to catch the direction of his gaze. She wore an inscrutable expression for a moment, before she conceded, “Well, it is pretty.”

  Nifty smiled back as a warmth coursed through his chest, but he knew it was a feeling he couldn’t afford to get sidetracked by. He forced his mind back to his Ranger training, letting the battle calmness take over.

  Nifty turned on his jacket’s deflectors, surmising that by “rifles” Lulu meant the strange weapon she’d given Smoath—the same one he’d encountered at the Gears.

  Her research with Belle over the past decade had no doubt exposed her to thousands of ancient devices that Nifty couldn’t even comprehend. He was envious, but also relieved that his own partner hadn’t shared Belle’s obsession with pre-scourge Submantle.

  His eyes narrowed in the darkness as he assessed the nearing semi-circle of men at the base of the lift. The rest of the platform looked abandoned— clearly none of the locals wanted any trouble, choosing to stay hidden as the foreigners fought amongst themselves. Nifty pulled out his arc-shot, feeling the Link surge through his arms, and prepared himself for a throw.

  “Stand down and you’ll not be harmed,” a helmeted guard called out from behind an opaque face-shield as the barge came to a gentle stop on the platform.

  Tatum, seemingly taking a page from Buttar’s notebook, let out a spine-chilling laugh and charged headlong toward the men, her flowing hair once again weaving itself into sleek plates that covered her entire body, giving her a disconcertingly reptilian appearance. She was met with a familiar whizzing noise as the panicked guards discharged their weapons.

  Lulu had been right. The same glowing blue discs he’d seen at the Gears sped through the air with blinding speed, heading straight for the attacking hyena. Four of the ten discs struck her squarely and then ricocheted off. Based on Tatum’s reaction, Nifty knew they must have caused her some discomfort as they elicited an angry growl and released energy into her hide.

  Before another volley could be fired, she was among them, tearing and snapping at the men and women on their cycles. Wisely, they retreated at once, guiding the vehicles with their knees and leaving their hands free for their rifles. Looping around as a unit, they circled the group in a cleverly practiced maneuver, reminding Nifty of the frigates at Terraport.

  They continued to fire as they rode, forcing both Nifty and Lulu to counter with their arc-shots, sending discs ripping through the greenback ranks, slowly eroding their defenses. Their
offensive was spread thin, and the pair quickly found themselves abandoning their arc-shots in favor of Riot and Lulu’s pick, Thorn, to deflect an increasing amount of return fire. If it hadn’t been for Snort’s robust hide and Buttar’s nimble movements, both Rangers would have certainly been taken into custody.

  As it was, Nifty narrowly deflected a disc from his face with the butt of his shatter bat as he leaned from his saddle to deliver a finishing blow to an elusive rider and her cycle. He cursed under his breath and reminded himself to be more careful.

  Lulu got her power pick wedged under a destroyed cycle and was forced to dismount to retrieve it. Buttar, free of his rider, and not to be out done by Tatum, immediately charged the greenbacks. His horns deflected half a dozen consecutive shots without apparent damage before plowing one of the riders off his cycle, flattening his ribcage with a sickening series of crunches as he drove him to the ground.

  “Buttar, attend,” Lulu commanded angrily.

  Lulu finally managed to mount Buttar once the headstrong beast finally circled back, appearing proud after finishing two more greenbacks. She had holstered her pick in favor of her truncheon, immediately putting it to work, deflecting multiple discs from two of the remaining guards. She even managed to send one of the projectiles back at the pair, causing them to veer away from the unexpected counter.

  Nifty spun to search for the fifth solider when he felt a sudden numbness spread over his left arm. He hadn’t even felt the impact, so sudden was the energy transfer.

  “Slagg!” he cursed loudly, finding the guard with a glare. He holstered Riot with his one good hand and then fumbled for his punch-pick. “Snort, pin that slagger, and don’t hold back.”

  Snort, who had already absorbed over a dozen disc shots across his snout, needed no further encouragement. He wheeled to the guard still on his cycle. In a brief game of cat-and-mouse, Snort managed to cut off the angles as the guard, realizing the futility of trying to compromise Snort’s prodigious natural defenses, decided to focus on Nifty instead with a barrage of discs. Tucking low against Snort’s back, Nifty remained well-protected behind the ridged pommel.

  Snort closed in on the cycle, plowing it into the edge of the hydro-lift, sending it and the rider into one of the feed pools for the fountains before holding it in place until it was dragged under by the current.

  The hapless greenback, realizing the danger, paddled furiously to the edge and dragged himself up over the lip, only to be snapped-up by the opportunistic Tatum. The beast clamped onto his waist and shook him like a weed from the garden, before tossing him into one of the other riders, sending both of them to the ground in a crumpled heap.

  Turning back to Lulu, Nifty was relieved to see the other guards had fled back and were now on the four remaining cycles, leaving a clear path across the platform and out into the forest. He stared down at his useless hand. He could move his fingers but his whole arm felt as if he’d slept on it wrong, only much worse, and he could feel none of the customary pins and needles associated with returning circulation.

  “Look,” Lulu barked, pointing to the fountains above as a dozen or more discs suddenly smashed into the ground around them.

  Nifty’s heart sank as he peered through the darkened city to see two larger hydro-lift platforms descending, both crowded with more guards. At this distance he could also make out at least two lance hares, sneaking a peek over the edge.

  Before they could react, a darkened figure, cloaked in black, flung itself over the ledge of one of the lifts and directly into the column of water supporting the adjoining platform. The man somehow managed to slow his decent with a fan of displaced water before neatly stepping out of the spray to land lightly in front of their party.

  At over eight-feet tall, the masked man was larger than most and carried more weapons than Nifty could count. Two swords on either side of a larger version of the guard’s rifles were slung across his broad back, along with a number of vaguely familiar blades and other close combat weapons tucked around his waist and across his chest. His right forearm bore a series of machined tubes that intertwined like snakes to form an oversized bracer that began to glow purple as the warrior approached.

  Nifty knew immediately that they were in trouble—this was no random guard. He doubted he could duplicate the move on the fountain, even on his best day, not to mention with a nearly useless arm dangling at his side.

  They needed to go. And quickly.

  The few remaining greenbacks circled on their vehicles and joined the man at the base of the fountain, undoubtedly relieved to have proper backup.

  The man ignored them all. Instead, in a blur of motion, he pulled a long and thin shaft of metal from his back and loaded into a slot near his elbow. Nifty knew, even from this distance, that the man was Linked and the metal could only be Flux—its purple glint upon loading was a dead give-away.

  “Stand down,” a gravelly voice ordered behind the black and green striped battle mask. Strangely, the man kept reaching back as if to seize hold of one of his swords, pausing at his shoulder each time, clenching his mailed fist as he seemed to almost force it back to his side.

  Nifty wheeled Snort and ordered him towards the forests. From behind he heard Tatum unleash a gleeful cackle and turned just in time to see her running at the soldiers.

  “Tatum, stop!” Nifty and Lulu cried in unison. Lulu’s cry came as she fought with Buttar briefly. The stubborn creature looked intent on joining the valence hyena in her charge.

  Their warning came too late. With a terrible, high-pitched grinding noise, the soldier’s forearm arm lit-up and the tubes fanned out around his wrist. An impossibly long, concentrated funnel of purple sparks showered from the tube, slammed into Tatum’s chest and spread across her front legs. The funnel deposited a fine layer of shiny dust, hardening as it cooled, locking her front legs in place and causing her to skid gracelessly into the ground. With her front legs frozen, her rear legs worked spastically as she fought to regain her bearings.

  Nifty gauged that the thicker metal mane on her torso was the only thing that saved her from complete disaster. That and the fact that the warrior obviously never encountered a valence hyena before, or he would have kept spraying until she was completely encased in the metal.

  On a hunch, Nifty called, “Tatum, drop your metal mane then re-engage it,” while awkwardly un-holstering Riot and setting the auto loader, this time to ten.

  The soldier turned to face Lulu and Nifty as they returned for their downed comrade. The funnel of sparks from his forearm retracted briefly and then returned, only this time the spray of sparks had thinned into a long spear better suited for cutting and slashing.

  Tatum unleashed a series of painful yelps as the hairs of her chest fought their way free of their prison. With a final tearing noise, she regained her feet and tore the thin metal plate from her chest, sending it clanging across the paving stones.

  “We can’t stay,” Nifty called to Lulu as she cranked her power pick’s energy piston, readying herself for a charge. “We need to file a full report at Rocktower, our pride be dammed.”

  Fixing him with a glare, she looked over at Tatum, who seemed to be preparing an attack. With a slump of her shoulders, she called out, “Dusters, engage!” Her tone mirroring his thoughts.

  There was a brief flicker around the courtyard as a dozen dusters appeared around the soldier and his greenback comrades. As one they converged, flashing their wings in confusing colors and alternating their flight patterns. Nifty quickly realized that Lulu, anticipating this eventuality—had loaded the creatures with small payloads of stain, the dark, sticky, stinking fluid began to accumulate on the heads and chests of the soldiers.

  Turning Snort to leave, Nifty’s eyes never left the cloaked figure. He was waving his arms, attempting to clear the buildup on his helmet, reaching back for a sword before jerking his hand down again. Nifty almost regretted his decision not to flee as he witnessed the man’s hand shooting out with another of those blindin
g movements, smashing one of the dusters to the ground.

  “Dart, NO!” Nifty cried out as he recognized his tiny friend.

  She fluttered hard in an effort to launch herself, but Nifty could see the poor girl didn’t comprehend the severity of her injuries and before long the flapping became less desperate and more reflexive. Finally, she stopped altogether, her tiny body still. From his vantage across the courtyard Nifty watched as the vibrant green of her wings faded to a deathly grey.

  Half a dozen times over the years Nifty had witnessed the passing of one of his small friends; each time his throat knotted at the panic they must have felt when the life began to leave their limbs.

  Did Lofty even know that her sacrifice would allow them to escape?

  With tear-filled eyes, a rage built in Nifty’s belly, a white-hot rage he rarely experienced. Forcing his useless arm into action, he focused on the Link with Riot as he watched his numb limb claw the launcher from Snort’s saddle and slam it into place under the bat’s blade. Without thought, he programmed the launcher for the lava bridge and fired four discs in quick succession into the lift fountains behind the warrior.