by Keri Arthur
I continued looking for the hole the earth had created, and finally spotted it halfway up the chamber’s wall, well beyond my reach—which also meant it was well beyond the reach of the Irkallan. I tossed the pack toward it, ordered the air to shove it deep in that hole, and then thrust a hand against the warm earth and asked it to seal the hole back up.
As the earth obeyed, the air screamed a warning. I swung around, gut buster blazing. Two Irkallan lost legs, the third lost his head, and the fourth came straight at me. I kept firing, shredding his chest and stomach, but it didn’t seem to matter. I swore and flicked the air at him. As he stumbled and almost fell, I quickly drew the sword with my free hand and swung it down, severing his head from his neck in one clean blow.
Where’s the other tunnel? I asked the air.
Directly across the room.
Directly across meant going through the Irkallan who were currently picking themselves up and looking around for trouble. But it was also the fastest way out of this damn room.
I sheathed the sword and reclaimed the other gun, shoved a fresh clip into both, and then ran directly at the Irkallan, firing as I did. As they went down in the hail of metal, that countdown in my head said time was starting to run out.
I jumped over rubble, furniture, and the dead, and ran on. More Irkallan soldiers came at me from the left and the right, some of them bleeding and broken, but all of them looking determined to get me. Weapons were raised and fired, and the mucus chased every footstep as I leapt and dodged and returned their fire.
I reached the archway and slid around the corner, only to come face-to-stomach with another batch of Irkallan. We went down in a mass of arms and legs, their mandibles clashing, tearing into various bits of my body even as I struggled to get free. The countdown in my head continued relentlessly, an ever-present reminder of how little time I had left.
I screamed in fury and fear, and began firing, even as I reached for the air and asked it for help. As the wind grabbed my arms and ripped me free from the melee, one of the Irkallan somehow twisted around and wrapped a hand around my leg, attempting to pull me back. It was lifted off the ground right along with me, but it didn’t seem to care. Its grip got tighter, its claws digging deep into my calf. I screamed again and kicked at it with my free leg, smashing it in the face. It didn’t make any difference and it certainly didn’t make it release me.
I asked the wind to release one hand and it immediately did so, wrapping thick fingers around my waist instead as it continued to speed us away from the queen’s chamber.
I switched the gut buster for my knife and plunged it past the Irkallan’s slashing mandibles and into its eye. As the Irkallan screamed and cursed me, I thrust the knife deeper into its skull, right into its brain. It died instantly, but it didn’t release me. I withdrew the gore-slicked knife and slashed it across the Irkallan’s limb, freeing the bulk of its body but leaving its claws embedded in my flesh. Blood was flowing altogether too freely down my leg, but those claws might also be the only things stopping that flow from being much worse.
Minutes. I only had minutes left.
Then I heard a sound that chilled my bones—a high-pitched scream of utter fury, and one that somehow had a distinctly female sound.
The queen was awake, and hunting.
Faster. I needed to go faster. But the wind could do only so much, and as my strength faded, so too did my control over her. If I forced more speed now, I’d have nothing left to confront the Irkallan who were with the children.
And if I didn’t, I’d be fighting the monster who ruled this place.
I found more strength from who knew where, and the wind’s speed increased. But that unholy roar of fury was drawing ever closer; the bitch was fast. Faster than the wind, at least right now.
I resolutely reloaded the gut busters then asked the wind to turn me around so that I was looking back rather than forward. The scrape of claws against tunnel’s stone floor was clearly audible now. She was close. So close.
I took a deep breath that did nothing to ease the sick fear in my gut and raised the gut busters. My hands were steady, even if my heart wasn’t.
The scraping grew so loud it was all I could hear, but the darkness remained resolute and still. No monsters emerged from it.
Not for several seconds.
Then the shadows parted, and she appeared. She might have a broken arm, a shattered mandible, and only one eye, but if the years of fighting the Adlin had taught me anything, it was the fact that a wounded adversary was sometimes the most dangerous.
I fired, and kept firing, as she arrowed toward me. Blood and gore flew as the bullets tore into her head, shoulders, and torso. The rain of metal should have killed her, but it didn’t. Her exoskeleton was thicker than even that of her soldiers’, and it was obviously going to take more than a few rounds to do any true damage.
I wasn’t sure I had that many rounds left, let alone enough time. The countdown clock in my head was now flashing red.
The queen raised her good arm and slashed at my face. I jerked back instinctively, even as the air wrenched me sideways. The queen’s mandibles clashed, barely missing my legs, snapping air instead. She slashed at me again, catching my hip, cutting through the ammo belt and down into skin. I hissed in pain but kept firing as I ordered the wind to brake. The queen’s momentum shot her past me, her thick claws drawing sparks from the stone as she slid to a stop and then spun around. I continued to fire; chunks of armor-like flesh were now flying, but if the queen was in any way feeling pain, she certainly wasn’t showing it.
The gut busters would kill her but nowhere near quickly enough. The countdown had reached critical point—there could only be seconds left before the bomb went off.
I shoved the guns back onto their clips and then drew the sword. In the deep darkness of the tunnel, the glass blade shone with a bright blue fire. The queen screamed in response and charged. I held my ground and waited until the very last moment—until all I could smell was her stink and her fury, and her snapping mandibles were within slicing distance. Then I ordered the wind to dodge and duck, and, with all the strength I could muster, swung the sword. It hit her thigh, sliced through flesh and bone with ease, completely severing her leg. As her limb fell in what seemed like slow motion to the ground, the queen screamed, and somehow swung around on the other leg, slashing wildly with her claws. I swung the sword and met her blow with the blade, slicing the fingers from her left limb, her wrist off the right. Then I brought it around again and stabbed at her eye. She jerked back, unbalanced, and fell.
In that moment, the countdown in my head stopped and that imaginary red flashing light seized. What followed was a weird moment of silence. It was almost as if the earth and the air were holding their collective breaths.
Then there was an ominous whoomp, one that was far deeper than other two, and the earth all around me started to shake. A heavy rumbling noise ran through the tunnel behind us, getting louder and louder, gaining speed as a heavy orange glow began to light the darkness. Huge chunks of earth and stone started raining around me and the air gained urgency even as the heat and dust and freedom only knew what else battered my body.
Go, I told the air. Now.
She obeyed. But the rumbling had become so loud it was beginning to hurt my ears and it wasn’t just the ceiling tearing itself apart now, but also the walls. The queen disappeared under a pile of rubble and dust.
The air tore me sideways, into another, smaller tunnel. But the heat and the energy of the explosion continued to chase us, and this tunnel also began to collapse inward.
I didn’t want to die. Not before I’d completed my mission, anyway, and stopped the remaining children—for their sake just as much as much as anything else.
Where are the children? I asked.
They are ahead, the air said. But if we stop, that explosion will kill you as surely as it will kill them.
I can’t leave those bracelets on them.
You will die wi
th them if you stop.
Then I’ll die. But not before I got those bracelets and somehow ensured they could never be used again.
So be it. Shall we once again steal their breath?
Yes. I hesitated. How many Irkallan are with them?
Only two.
Can you steal their breath as well?
Yes, but with each order, and each death, you are further weakened.
And I still needed the strength to order the bracelets hidden. Surely I could cope with two Irkallan. It was certainly better than facing two Adlin.
The air continued to sweep me through the shaking, breaking tunnel. Breathing was becoming more difficult thanks to the dust choking the air, and I couldn’t see anything now. Nothing more than the dusty orange glow that was the firestorm of energy and destruction pursuing us.
The children are down, the wind said. Be ready—the Irkallan are around the next corner.
I swapped my sword for the gut busters as we entered the sweeping corner. But the air was so thick with heat and dust now that I had no hope of seeing the Irkallan. And if I couldn’t see them, they surely couldn’t see me. I asked the wind to sweep me up to the crumbling roof as we neared the end of the turn. Dirt and rock thumped into every inch of my body, the force of each blow so strong it felt like a thousand fists were pummeling me.
It didn’t matter. Nothing did except killing the Irkallan and getting those bracelets. As the tunnel straightened and I got a vague glimpse of lavender flesh up ahead, I began to fire, filling the entire tunnel with a hail of metal.
As both guns clicked over to empty, the wind swept down from the ceiling and deposited me onto the ground. There wasn’t much left of the Irkallan after my barrage—just a mess of lavender pulp interspersed between the bits of bones and mandibles. The children lay under these bloody and broken carcasses, their grimy faces covered with gore and yet oddly serene—it was as if they’d felt death’s coming and had welcomed it.
I ran to the first child, knelt, and quickly pried the bracelet off his wrist. It would have been far easier to simply order the earth to bury both the children and the bracelets, but that would take for more strength than I had.
The air was so thick and hot that my body burned and every breath was now a struggle. The rumble that was the earth collapsing on the tunnel system was dangerously close again now, and the chunks of stone raining down from the ceiling were becoming body crushing. I didn’t have the time for finesse. I had to get the remaining bracelets off these children and then get somewhere safe enough to bury them deep into the soil before that raging storm of heat and destruction hit me.
I sent a silent prayer of forgiveness to the souls of the children then thrust to my feet and ran to the remaining four, quickly slicing the bracelets from their wrists.
As the ceiling directly above me fissured, I grabbed the last two bracelets and then screamed for the air to get me out of there. I was lifted up and flung forward in an instant, but the ceiling and the walls were chasing me now, snapping at my heels like a drakkon hungry for flesh.
The wind flung me around another corner and, just for a second, we were free of it all. I asked to be put down again, and the air obeyed so rapidly I did a stumbling run forward before falling to my knees. My whole body shook with fatigue and pain, and there wasn’t an inch of skin left that wasn’t bloodied or bruised. But I wasn’t finished yet.
I dropped my collection of bracelets and severed hands onto the ground in front of me and then buried my fingertips into the soil. There was no response from the earth and, after a moment, I realized why. The ground in this tunnel was dead. I swore and punched it in frustration, then called to the air and bid it to start digging. As dust began to spin around me, choking my vision and filling my lungs, the walls began to tremble and shake. Damn it, just how much farther would the explosive power of the M185 blocks travel? Surely it would have to ease off soon?
As the wind dug deeper into the dead soil, I began to hear the voice of the earth. I thrust a hand down into the hole and felt the slivers of power curl around my fingers. It pulled at me, draining the last remnants of my strength even as it answered my call.
Bury the bracelets so deep they can never be found, I said.
Our pleasure, the voices of the earth answered. And now, run. Or you die.
As fingers of clean earth rose up from the hole and collected the bracelets, I pushed to my feet and staggered away. But my head was spinning, my legs felt like water, and there was absolutely nothing left in the tank now.
The wind tugged at me, begging me to go faster, grabbing my arms and propelling me along as hard as it could. But my weakness was being reflected in its strength now, and we were both fading fast.
Somehow I pushed on, but I was running on nothing more than sheer determination. Then the walls started moving around me, the ceiling became fluid, and the floor started bucking and kicking. I stumbled and fell, landing hard on hands and knees. The air screamed at me to get up, to move, and I tried, freedom only knew, I tried.
But I couldn’t. My body was a dead weight that refused to move.
I closed my eyes and prayed for the end to be quick.
Then the earth fell on top of me, and I knew no more.
14
It was the voices that woke me. At first I thought it was simply the air, begging me to get up, to move, to not die, but some of those voices had a timbre that reminded me of the earth. Perhaps the tunnel’s collapse had cleared the dead soil and uncovered the living earth in this area.
But even if I’d had the strength to move, I couldn’t have. There were several weights lying across my body, pinning me, and my legs were numb. As for dying… breathing was becoming a struggle and there was a part of me that was more than ready to give up the fight, to let go and find peace and an end to the pain.
No! the voices said. You will not die in this place. Fight, damn you.
I tried to open my eyes, but couldn’t. I shifted slightly, realized I had movement in my right arm, and raised a hand to gently probe my face. It was covered with sticky moisture, dirt, and freedom only knew what else, and it was that muck that had glued my eyes shut. I carefully rubbed it away, and then opened my eyes.
Three feet in front of me was a massive rock that was jammed hard against what remained of the nearby tunnel wall. It had stopped on an angle, in the midst of falling flat and, instead of crushing me, had protected me from the worst of the tunnel’s collapse. The air swirling around me was heated and thick with dust, suggesting I hadn’t actually been out for long. I twisted to the right, trying to see what, exactly, was pinning me, but the left half of my body wasn’t moving properly. I turned to see why, and saw the mess that was my left arm. Not only could I see bone, but blood—blood that already stained the earth and whose flow showed no signs of abating.
I was going to bleed to death before anyone could get here to help me.
We are close, the voices said.
Only it was one voice now, not many, and its tone was as rich as the earth itself and oh so familiar.
Trey.
But why was he here, in this place? Why wasn’t he mopping up the Irkallan with the rest of the outpost forces?
Hang on, he continued. We are little more than ten minutes away from you now.
“Everything hurts,” I said, though whether I gave that reply voice or it was merely said in my mind, I couldn’t say. Not that it really mattered—he’d hear me either way.
I know, he said. And we’ll fix that. Just hang on.
“I’m hanging,” I said, even as I wondered if that would be enough.
I shifted my good arm and slowly reached down into my pocket. Despite everything that had happened, the medikit was still tucked safely inside. I dragged it up toward my face, pried it open, and then freed the second canister of sealer. It wouldn’t do a whole lot for the mangled state of my arm, but maybe it would stop the worst of the bleeding. It might not, in the end, make much of a difference given I had no idea i
f there were worse wounds elsewhere, but I had to at least try. Whether it would give me ten more minutes or not was anyone’s guess.
I tore the cap off with my teeth then slowly but carefully eased my good hand over to my left and sprayed the sealer. It hurt so bad it tore a scream from my throat, and even though the sound came out as little more than a garbled cry, I thought I heard its echo in the near distance.
I kept spraying back and forth until the canister was empty, and then dropped onto the ground. Pain was a white-hot lance that continually stabbed into my brain, and it quickly consumed what little strength I had left. As unconsciousness began to claim me again, the earth around me shook.
Whether the earth remained unstable because of my bombs, or whether it was Trey and his people coming to get me, I couldn’t say.
All I knew was I didn’t have the strength to remain awake. I closed my eyes and let the blackness claim me.
The second time I awoke, it was to bright sunshine above me, and the softness of bedding underneath me. I remained completely still for several minutes, simply enjoying being able to breathe in and out without the flicker of pain. Then, remembering the numbness in my legs and mashed remnants of my left arm, I cautiously wiggled my toes and then my fingers. When they both responded, I felt like cheering. There was a decided tightness in my calf where the Irkallan’s claws had dug in, and a similar tightness along my arm that spoke of new skin and scarring, but I didn’t care.
I was alive, and I could move. Nothing else really mattered right now.
I opened my eyes. It was immediately obvious that I wasn’t in Winterborne—that I was, in fact, back in Trey’s quarters at Blacklake.
But the first face I saw was Ava’s, and while I was more than happy to see her, I couldn’t help the sliver of disappointment that ran through me.