Pierce came more slowly, eventually dropping the pack and stripping off his own helmet as well. He pulled out the water bottles, handing her one as he settled beside her. It was a perfect spot for lunch, so they got out the ration bars and Snak-Paks.
Pink and lavender flowers danced around them and the scudding clouds played the land with roving shafts of sunlight. Her headache all but gone, her stomach no longer churning, Callie again stretched out on the slope and closed her eyes. She’d made it! She’d come over the mountain and survived. The link was still open, and now she channeled gratitude and newfound appreciation through it. What a remarkable gift she’d been given!
She opened her eyes and grinned at the sky, then tucked a hand beneath her head and regarded her companion. Pierce lay beside her, propped on one elbow as he surveyed the landscape and drank from his bottle. The wind lifted the hair off his brow, reminding her of the day they had come through the Gate, how he’d looked like a captain at the prow of his ship—strong, wise, capable.
“We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?” she said.
He glanced at her, smiling. “Yeah.”
Sweat had kinked his hair and plastered it to the back of his head, and his jaw wore a few days’ growth of beard, but to her he had never looked better. A wave of deep affection swept her. Impulsively she drew her hand from beneath her head and laid it on his shoulder. “Whatever would I do without you?”
He went rigid, a strange light flickering in his eyes. Then the mask fell into place. “You’d manage.” He squinted out over the valley.
“No,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t.” Beneath her palm, his shoulder trembled.
“You’re tougher than you think.” Water sloshed in the bottle as he lifted it to his lips.
“You saw how it was for me back there.”
“I saw you overcome it, too.” He capped the bottle and laid it down between them. “And it’s not me you can’t do without, it’s Elhanu.”
“Maybe. But if you hadn’t been there to make me think of that, I’d be dead. I’m such a wimp. I always have been. Afraid of everything— heights, people . . . my own feelings.” She stroked his shoulder with her thumb, felt hard muscle beneath the knitted undershirt. Then she sighed. “Oh, Pierce, I’m sorry I hurt you that night. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do or even what I was feeling.”
He turned to snare her gaze, his eyes that deep turquoise that made her breath catch. “And do you now?”
She felt poised at the edge of another precipice. Her heart raced.
Blood pounded in her ears. “I think so.”
The wind whipped up around them, setting the wild flowers to frenzied bobbing. He smoothed the dancing tendrils of hair back from her face, fingers trailing moth light along her cheek and jaw. His thumb paused under her chin, and then he leaned down and kissed her.
She felt as if she’d exploded into a thousand pieces of light that whirled up and up into the vast cloud-scudded sky. When he drew away, she was spellbound with wonder. His eyes traveled over her face, his fingers caressing the contours of her lips and again pressing back the dancing tendrils of hair. She touched the grizzle on his jaw, the brown curl by his ear, then drew him to her, drinking him in, shivering with feelings she’d never dreamed she had.
She heard the rattle of stones a second before he broke away. Pushing up onto his knees, Pierce reached for his SI and stared up the hill, while she lay frozen, watching him closely.
“Someone’s coming,” he murmured.
“The third mutant?”
“Maybe. Come on.” He rolled back onto his feet, gave her a hand up, and they were off as if nothing had changed.
CHAPTER
21
They hurried downhill, taking cover behind a granite hump. It’s going to smell us, Callie thought. The goats are gone, and we’ve been here almost an hour. But there’s only one, and it’s sick. Pierce destroyed the fire curtain—
A horrible suspicion knifed her. What if he hadn’t?
He laid a hand on her arm. She looked up to find him listening intently, and instantly she heard distant whoops and shouts that didn’t sound like Trogs. Warily, she peered around the rock. On the slope above, a group of helmeted figures in camouflage danced and cavorted at the mist’s edge.
“Well, how about that?” Pierce murmured, stepping into view.
“They must have been right behind us.”
One of the figures pointed at them, and more whoops rode the wind. Evvi reached them first, long hair flying. She flung herself onto Pierce and spun him around. Then the others were there—Tuck, Gerry, Wendell, and Mr. Chapman—slapping their backs and exclaiming with delight.
They’d seen the rocks explode, Tuck explained, and thought Pierce and Callie were dead. “We split and ran. They got Whit and LaTeisha and John—”
“Killed or captured?” Pierce asked.
“Captured.”
A moment of silence ensued as they pondered the awful significance, then Tuck continued. “Anyway, few as we were, we could only go up and hope they wouldn’t follow.”
“We wandered around for quite a while,” Evvi added, “trying to figure out the best way to go. When we saw three Trogs ahead of us, Gerry figured there must be a route, so we followed them.”
“Then we heard the explosion,” Tuck continued, pulling off his helmet and combing freckled fingers through his auburn hair. “When we got to the top and found them dead—two with clean head shots— and that blasted-out crater, I’ll tell you the backs of our necks crawled. I guess you picked ’em off. Did you make the crater, too?”
Pierce nodded. “You say all three were dead?”
Tuck replaced his helmet. “Yeah. I think the altitude got to the one. What I can’t understand is what they were doing up here. They had to know the air would kill them.”
“There was a fire curtain there.” Pierce braced the butt of the SI on his hip. “I blew it up.”
Tuck cocked a brow at him. “What’d you use? A howitzer?”
So Pierce explained to them about the belt.
“You were right in the middle of it, and you didn’t get hurt?” Evvi asked, her brown eyes wide.
“My ears rang for a while.”
Gerry edged in front of her. “What I’d like to know is, how you found your way over that pass.”
“The goats led us over.” Pierce squinted up the mountainside. “You must’ve scared them off.”
“Goats?” Tuck pulled a peanut butter ration bar from his pocket and unwrapped it.
“They could’ve been over the mountain in an hour,” Pierce explained. “Instead, they took their time, making sure we followed. I think Elhanu sent them.”
The others considered this in silence. Tuck started eating his bar, and Gerry said, “Well, it was a great route. I was sure there was no way over that thing without some serious rope and piton work.” He grinned at Callie. “Outstandin’ job, Cal. I am impressed.”
Evvi was bent over, struggling with the zipper on her pack. “Me too. I nearly came unglued myself on that one cliff.”
Callie smiled at Pierce. “I had help.” Abruptly all those newly discovered feelings welled up in her, and for a moment she was back in his arms again, tasting his kisses—
“Well,” Gerry drawled, jarring her back to the present, “I’d say you’re cured of acrophobia.”
“Indeed,” Mr. C chimed in, squeezing her shoulder. His dark eyes understood as no one else’s. And then he flicked a knowing smile at Pierce, as if he understood what had happened there as well. Was she that transparent?
Evvi’s zipper finally gave way and she fell to the ground with an oof, then pulled out her water bottle. A rations wrapper skittered away. Callie stomped it and put it in her pocket. Evvi never noticed, pulling out lunch things and chattering about their trip as the others settled around her.
Their break didn’t last long. By dusk they were well below the tree line, and though they had seen no Trogs, the smoke rising from in
numerable points throughout the valley confirmed the mutants’ presence. They built a lean-to, warming it with a tiny fire over which Tuck made a meal of two grouse they’d shot earlier in the day.
After dinner Pierce and Callie went out to a rocky bluff to glass the valley below. The air lay still and quiet. Long shadows striped the tumbled forest at their feet, and here and there the river gleamed between tree-cloaked promontories. They stood in the shelter of several pines and passed the binoculars back and forth, discussing the best route for tomorrow. Two bags of E-cubes wouldn’t go far given the number of Trogs in the valley, so they wanted as little enemy contact as possible.
Finally the decisions were made and the binoculars put away, yet still they lingered, ostensibly admiring the sunset. It was breathtaking, but Callie barely noticed. Although Pierce had spoken privately to Evvi, and the news had clearly hurt her, he’d been so coolly professional toward Callie since the others had joined them, she feared he’d come to regret his actions. Hoping for reassurance from him once they were alone, she’d gotten nothing and ached now to ask him about it. Except she didn’t know how, and was, in the end, afraid to. Her anxiety had risen to a fever pitch when his fingers brushed her temple and smoothed the hair behind her ear. When she turned, he was looking down at her, his eyes green in the golden light.
“Was what happened on that hillside today real?” he murmured. “Or did I imagine it?”
The anxiety drowned in a flood of relief. “If you did, I must’ve imagined it, too.”
He took her into his arms and kissed her. It was a long, gentle embrace, and when he pulled away, she was so full of emotion she thought she would burst.
“I have wanted this . . .” he breathed, “dreamed of this for so long. . . .” He kissed along the edge of her jaw and down her neck. Electric thrills radiated from his touch, weakening her knees so that she clung to him giddily. “And just when I decide there’s no chance of ever having it, here it is.” His lips found hers again.
He was hard and lean and smelled of sweat and pine and smoke, and all of a sudden she fiercely resented the spongy double layer of breastplates that stood between them. This was so different from the way it had been with Garth. It was so right. So real. With Garth there had been a crazy sensuality that had swept her away, a trumpeting of her body’s need that almost blotted out the protests of her mind. This was the opposite. Her mind knew and appreciated all that Pierce was, all that he meant to her, and her body responded to that appreciation with a firestorm of desire that made what happened with Garth seem like nothing. In that moment she believed if he had asked she’d have given him anything he wanted. But he didn’t ask.
Instead he pulled away with a shudder and relaxed his embrace, holding her gently now, chin against her forehead. “I hope I’m not dreaming,” he whispered.
She drew back to regard him. His face was flushed, his eyes shining, his feelings for once transparent. She smiled. “You were so distant after the others joined us, I was afraid you’d changed your mind.”
“I didn’t trust myself. I am supposed to be leading these people. And I wasn’t sure you hadn’t changed your mind.”
“Not likely.” She touched his whiskered cheek, his brow, brushed back the wing of hair that fell over it—saw the pair of butterfly closures on his forehead.
She fingered them, frowning. “This cut has already healed.”
He went very still. The stone mask dropped into place. Suddenly she was as frightened as she had been at any time during the last two days.
He touched the small bandages, then dropped his hand and stepped out of her embrace.
The world heaved under her feet. She couldn’t breathe—had to force the words from her throat. “Did you go through that curtain before you destroyed it?”
He turned to the gloom-filled valley, spangled with firelights, and said nothing.
She went around to face him, grabbing both his arms. “Pierce? Please. Tell me you didn’t.”
He wouldn’t answer her.
“Oh no! Why?”
“I . . . wanted it,” he said softly.
She stared at him, feeling as if some great wave had slapped through her, washing away all emotion, all thought, leaving her an empty shell. Light flickered at the edge of her vision, and everything got far away. Her knees wobbled, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.
Easing her to the ground, he knelt beside her. “I know it was wrong,” he said tightly. “I knew it the minute I did it. But it was a small one. A natural one. The effects aren’t as great—”
“Don’t try to make it less than it was. If it was smaller, its allure was less, too.”
He let go of her, dropped his hands into his lap.
“How could you do this?” she cried. “You of all people—you know better than any of us!” Her voice shook. “Elhanu changed you, healed you. But now—how could you do this to yourself? To me?”
“To you?”
“Make me fall in love with you, just so I can watch you turn into one of those things!”
“I am not going to turn into one of those things.”
“No? What are you going to do when we come to a big one?” She wiped the tears from her face, then hugged herself miserably.
“Callie, I won’t do it again.”
“How can you expect me to believe that?”
He pressed his lips together. A crease formed between his brows, but he said nothing. After a moment he got up and walked away.
Callie sat for a long time, inwardly railing at him, at herself for letting him go back alone when she knew his temptation. She should have insisted he take her. And now . . .
When she returned to camp, she sought him out. “Does this mean you can’t go through the portal?” she asked.
He shook his head. “One time isn’t enough.”
“One time.”
“I told you, Callie. I won’t do it again.”
Never had she wanted so much to believe him. Never had she been more afraid she couldn’t.
“We hold his leash, you see.”
Late in the afternoon, four days later, a well-torn riverside trail led them into the Devil’s Cauldron. Switchbacking alongside the river as it plunged down a narrow chute, they proceeded with great caution, Tuck and Pierce leapfrogging on point, with Wendell and Gerry covering the rear, and the others watching the group’s flanks. Having already encountered five bands of Trogs, they were excruciatingly aware of the potential for disaster, and with woodsmoke hanging blue in the trees, they knew they were close.
Nevertheless, it was a surprise when they rounded a rocky curtain and found the Cauldron gaping before them. Its sheer walls embraced a broad meadow shaped like an uneven hourglass, the larger bowl closest. At its waist, on the left, a graceful arch leapt from the cliff, just as the manual had described. Directly beneath that arch, cut into the wall where the stream curved around a rocky spit, lay the passage to their Safehaven, still out of sight from this vantage.
As Pierce had predicted, the Trogs had set up camp in front of it, denying all hope of easy access. Their leather teepees, lean-tos, and stolen dome tents filled the meadow beneath a haze of smoke. A few mutants lay sprawled on the ground, apparently sleeping, and more squatted in groups, talking or playing games. Here and there others stoked the fires and tended cook pots in preparation for the approaching night. At the midst of it all stood a massive, antlerlike fire curtain, its heavy main shafts looming some thirty feet high, curved toward each other at the top, with secondary tines branching off at intervals. Gleaming pale blue, each shaft was a good five feet in diameter at the base. Waist-high power boxes stood to one side, cloaked, like everything else, in blue dust. Farther away, a large wooden pen held prisoners.
Though the device was clearly turned off, Callie could still feel its aura, as if residual energies lingered. It appalled her how powerfully it conjured the memory of her encounter with its smaller cousin. She could almost see the undulating swirls of color, fe
el that warmth and sense of promise. . . .
She shook her head, breaking free. Pierce stood beside her, white faced and rigid, transfixed, until his gaze shifted to hers. His jaw tightened, and he glanced at the others. They were all going through the same thing.
On his signal they returned to the top of the chute, where they left the trail and ascended the side of the ravine to hold quiet conference. Pierce wanted to wait till morning, but Gerry protested they could be discovered at any moment. Or the weather could change, or a thousand other things could go wrong.
“And they’ve got Whit and the others,” Callie added, her eyes on Pierce. “If we don’t go tonight—”
“If we go now,” he said firmly, “we’ll end up prisoners ourselves. There are too many of them, too fresh out of the curtain. We’d use up all our E-cubes, and they’d still get us.” He braced the butt of his SI against his hip. “In the morning they’ll be nearly unconscious. We can slip through and free the others, then.”
“But if they put them through the curtain—” Callie began.
“It’ll have worn off by the time we reach the portal.”
She frowned at him.
“We might as well throw our weapons aside and surrender if we go down there now.”
Finally agreeing that he was right, the band found a wooded hollow in which to settle. With the possibility of a new group of Trogs coming down the trail at any time, dinner was limited to cold ration bars and water, and conversation stuck to necessities. They huddled against trees and rocks in their parkas and helmets, and everyone kept his armor on, his SI at hand, his SLuB holster unbuttoned.
Callie drew first watch and stationed herself on a rock below the hollow, the dark wooded slope sheering down before her. Overhead the sky faded from lavender to dusky blue as the crickets started up. Behind her, someone was already snoring. Probably Pierce. He was still the only person she knew who could fall asleep in a matter of minutes, no matter what the danger.
On the trail below, thudding footfalls approached, accompanied by various creaks and cracks, and once, a curse and a cry of pain. She listened tensely, but the sounds passed by without incident and faded, lost in the crickets’ symphony. Continuously she scanned the darkness, pulling out the rough verticals that were trees, the pale humps of rocks. Her belt’s energy field, amplified and integrated by helmet and breastplate, not only protected her from being shot, it extended her range of visible light—at both ends of the spectrum. With it on she could tolerate light that would normally blind her, could see Aggillon and Tohvani manifestations that unenhanced eyes would miss, and enjoyed a significantly improved level of night vision.
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