Then hands gripped his arms and he tried to fight, his movements slow and all wrong.
“I’ve got him,” Sacmis said, “stop pushing me,” and a weight lifted. He stumbled to the side, fetching against a wall.
Sacmis and Hera held Kalaes between them. A faint sound to his right made him jump. But it was only Alendra, sliding to her knees, eyes closed.
“Ale.” He staggered over to her, pulled her to her feet. Her slight frame trembled in his arms. “We need to go.”
They followed the others through a door which whirred closed after them, and into a domed hall lit with flickering lights. He looked up and his steps faltered.
Holy shit. Huge machines, big like beacon towers, stacked neatly in rows. War machines.
When Hera had mentioned a cache of weapons, he’d thought of guns and bullets, maybe cannons. Not this. Gods, not this, and yet...
Horrified, terrified, in awe, he moved closer, dragging Alendra along. This was surely much better, this... could win a war.
Hera was waving at them, gesturing at something. She’d set Kalaes down by one of the huge wheels.
“Wait here,” she said as soon as he and Alendra reached them. “Sacmis and I will check if there’s an elevator.”
Kalaes lifted his head, his possessed blue eye gleaming. One corner of his lips lifted. “Don’t worry, fe, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I did not think you would.” Hera’s dark eyes narrowed. “You look like shit.”
“Compliments will get you nowhere,” Kalaes growled. “Just go already. The sooner we get out of his hellhole the better.”
“Manners.” Hera cocked her head, long hair curtaining her face, as she checked the ammo in her gun. “Did you say mortal girls like you?”
“I’ll have you know,” Kalaes murmured, leaning back and closing his eyes, dark smudges under them, “girls think I’m quite charming.”
Cat sauntered over and rubbed his face on Kalaes’ thigh. Elei stared. Oh right. Rex approved, apparently. Another one of us.
Elei sank down next to Kalaes, Alendra sighing softly as she curled up at his side. “Did you know about this, Hera?” He waved a hand vaguely. “About the machines?”
She tapped the barrel of her gun, eyes going narrow and thoughtful. “No, but now I wonder what kind of weapons all those caches marked on the map may hold.”
A frightening thought. Whoever held so much power in their hands could do anything. “Hera.” He tried to lick his lips but his mouth was too dry. “Will you tell them about the caches? About all that’s on the map?”
Hera stood there, a graceful shadow, her gun pointing to the domed ceiling. Behind her the enormous machines stretched and rose like a wakening storm. “I do not know yet,” she whispered. “You’re right, maybe...” She shook her head. “Maybe nobody should have them.” She clucked her tongue. “First things first. Let’s end this war. You have my word I’ll consult with you before I do anything.”
She would? Elei shook his head. It felt strangely light, as if it wasn’t connected to his body at all. Was his opinion really important to her?
Family. There were many side effects to having one, apparently, and smiling while fighting off tears was one of them.
Not that he complained.
***
The elevator spat and sputtered, but the doors cranked closed and the cables overhead groaned as it started to move. Cat had taken his customary place on Elei’s shoulder, claws digging into his flesh. The small, sharp pain kept him focused. He glanced at the faces around him, ghostly in the bluish lights on the elevator ceiling. They all looked dazed, gazes blank, cheeks hollow and cheekbones prominent. Sick and exhausted.
He’d dozed earlier, propped against a frigging war machine, while waiting for Hera and Sacmis to return, but his vision remained blurry and his head was unbearably heavy as they went up.
And after we reach the surface? Then what?
The question lingered on the tip of his tongue like bitter candy. He dared not ask, didn’t want to know, didn’t know what he could do with the knowledge. Didn’t know if he could keep walking. All he wanted to do was lie down and go back to sleep.
Alendra jostled him, then gave him a sheepish look, and he didn’t know if she’d done it on purpose to keep him awake or if she’d been falling asleep herself.
Cat kneaded his claws energetically into Elei’s flesh, and he shook his head to clear it.
The ride up wasn’t so long this time — unless he’d lost track of time, which was quite possible. The elevator shrieked to a shaky halt, throwing them one against the other and finally in a jumble on the floor. Cat hissed but never budged from Elei’s shoulder, tail held up rigidly like a flag of doom.
The doors ground open, the sound making Elei’s teeth ache, and they crawled out into another dim tunnel. Another pissing tunnel with those damn fungi lighting it at intervals, hanging like lit bulbs.
Hera scrambled upright, pulling Sacmis with her, holding her a moment longer than necessary, and Elei didn’t miss the grin breaking out on the blond Gultur’s face. It sent a pang through him, a sweetness like honey in his mouth, but when he licked his lips again, they tasted of grit and dust.
When Hera pulled at his arm, he struggled to get up. Sacmis already had her arms full with Kalaes and Alendra, hauling them out.
“The exit?” he managed, each word coughed up like a rusty nail.
“This way.” Hera dragged him unceremoniously out of the elevator, drew his gun and pushed it into his hand. “I’ll take Kalaes. Sacmis will help Alendra. I trust you to walk on your own.”
Always expecting him to keep going, as if he were superhuman, like one of her race. One of her own.
He nodded, gripped the gun in hands that couldn’t quite grip and took a stumbling step, his leg rickety like an old ladder. Sharp pain went through it when he put weight on it. Old wounds come back to life.
But he kept on, stumbling after the others, because what else was there to do but go on. He almost laughed when they reached a ladder, except it wasn’t funny. The exit was right there. Up there in fact, and he wasn’t sure he’d make it.
Nevertheless he followed, hanging back a little so that Hera wouldn’t kick him in the face. Cat pawed at his arm, purring, and his knee buckled once and again, an instinctive grab for the next rung of the ladder saving him each time. His heart jack-hammered in his chest, in his throat.
He made a grab for the next fuzzy rung and missed, gasped and tried again, fingers slamming against the ladder. He curled them, found the rail and grasped it.
Hells.
“Everything okay?” Hera called from above, and he nodded. He pressed his brow to the cool metal and took a deep breath.
He climbed higher, grasping at rungs that seemed to sway and vibrate, to separate into cables, to dance back and forth. The snakeskin on his cheek itched, and maybe it was spreading but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Higher and higher, splinters of pain in his thigh, spikes in his knee, his head throbbing. Darkness, punctuated with red fungi, their phosphorescence strobing and swirling until he had to close his eyes and swallow nausea, and more darkness, thick and pulsing like warm blood.
And then a flood of dazzling light.
***
“Here, take my hand,” Hera said.
Elei gave up trying to clear his watering eyes and grabbed for it blindly. He was yanked up so hard he lost his footing and slammed against the ladder. But then another hand grabbed his wrist and hauled him through a circular opening into the light.
Daylight. He flopped on cold earth, his legs still dangling inside. The air smelled of water. We’re outside.
His mind sparkled and spun. He never thought he’d be so glad to see the surface of frigging Dakru again. He hooked a leg over the edge, pulled himself out and lay face down in the dirt. It’d never smelled so sweet. His fingers dug into soft soil.
Not a street. Not a city.
He sat up. Cultivated green fields, a blue algae po
nd, and scattered houses. A flock of pigeons took to the sky, black specks against a morning sky white with haze.
And behind, in the distance, tall towers of buildings, windows reflecting the day’s dazzle, and the sweeping curve of a heavenway, supported on concrete, square pillars. Abydos, great port of the north. Not even in his wildest dreams had he imagined he’d ever set eyes on it. Or on Dakru, let alone what lay beneath the ground.
He glanced around and found Hera standing, hair whipping behind her, an arm around Alendra. She was talking, her words broken by the wind. Kalaes leaned against Sacmis. He glanced back at Elei. His mouth moved as if speaking but Elei couldn’t hear him.
Then Hera apparently noticed he was still on his ass in the dirt and came to help him up. He took her hand, rose, almost fell on his face when his leg folded underneath him.
“We need to boost Rex before telmion brings you down.” Hera’s voice echoed in his ears, and her arm went around his waist, warm and strong, anchoring him. “We were talking about this with Sacmis, and it seems for once luck is on our side.”
Luck? Elei blinked.
“Marking the place,” Hera said and shoved with her foot a couple of rocks under the cover of the vent, keeping it open just a little. “Mark it too, Sacmis, it’s about a hundred paces from the nearest house.”
When Hera hauled him toward the house, he didn’t struggle. He began to struggle when she drew her longgun and kicked in the door, though by then it was too late.
A woman and a little boy, their eyes huge, sat at a narrow table, a meal set in front of them.
“Put away your gun, dammit,” Elei said. It hurt to speak, and his voice was like nails dragging across metal. “It’s a kid.” And that made perfect sense to him, although by the look on Hera’s face, for her it didn’t.
“I will not hurt you,” Hera said, and, to Elei’s relief, she lowered her gun until it pointed to the floor. “We need water and food. It’s urgent.”
Okay, true, maybe it was urgent. Water would be good. He leaned against the doorjamb as the floor began to slide from under him. Sacmis appeared with Kalaes and Alendra.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Another woman entered the room, stocky and old, aiming a gun at Hera. “What do you want?”
Oh, great. Hysterical laughter filled Elei’s throat, choking him. He stumbled forward and raised his hands.
The room tilted, and his knee buckled. Nobody was there to stop him from falling this time. He crashed, sprawled on his belly. The sounds faded, leaving him suspended in the void.
Then they rushed back in.
“Idiot, what are you doing?” Hera was saying, somewhere to his right. “I had this under control.”
He wanted to laugh at that, but he was too tired. Wanted to say he was okay, but that would demand too much energy, and besides, it’d be a lie. His head throbbed, his stomach roiled, and his leg burned like fire.
“Poor boy, is he okay?” the woman said, coming to stand over him. “You come in with your gun ablaze, what was I supposed to think?”
“I apologize,” Hera said, her voice a little scratchy. “As you can see, we’re in a bad shape. If we can only rest here for a while, drink some water and eat some of those k-blooms I saw in the fields outside...”
K-blooms? Rex perked, sent a jab of energy through Elei. Sugar.
“Yes, please,” he whispered.
***
Elei couldn’t get enough of the water and the sweet k-blooms, but at some point Hera pushed the dish back and glared at him.
“Enough, you’ll be sick. Rex only needs some encouragement, we do not want it getting out of hand. Equilibrium. That’s what we want.”
Elei glanced at Kalaes who’d eaten his fill and was fast asleep against the table, the black mop of his head laid on his folded arms. Alendra yawned, clapping a hand over her mouth. She caught Elei’s eye and gave him a tired smile.
“Is the battle heading our way?” the old woman asked, the one who’d held the gun. She sat next to Elei. “Is it far?”
Why was she asking him?
Rex was waking, pumping up his heart, clearing the fuzz from his head. The woman clearly thought they’d been in a battle, which would be the logical explanation — ‘we came from underground’ didn’t sound half sane. ‘War is coming,’ Mantis had said. Well, it was here.
“You need to tell us what you know,” he said. “Have you heard of any battles close by?”
“Well, not here in Abydos, not yet,” the woman said, worry lines etched around her mouth. “But, last I heard, the front was moving north, toward us.”
“Which side is winning?” Alendra asked.
“The regime is winning.” The old woman clucked her tongue. “As we expected.”
Hera stirred, pushed back her chair and stood up. “We need to get going. We, uh... We thank you for your hospitality.”
Both women and the little boy stared at her. Elei stared too. Hera was obviously making an effort to be polite and it showed in the tense set of her shoulders, her strained voice.
Alendra shook Kalaes and he looked up, blinking. “Wha’?”
“We didn’t even get a chance to introduce ourselves,” the younger woman said. “I’m Nera, and this is—”
“No time now,” Hera said, business-like. She grabbed Elei’s arm and pulled him to his feet where he swayed.
Well, at least the pain in his leg was lessening. “Hera...”
“We need your vehicle,” Hera said, ignoring him. “It’s of the utmost importance we leave immediately.”
“Now listen, girl.” The old woman squared her shoulders, lifted her wrinkled chin. “We did all we could for you. We’re a poor family and can’t afford to—”
“You listen.” Hera banged her fist on the table, politeness forgotten, making everyone jump and setting Elei’s possessed eye pulsing. “Unless you want the regime to win this war, too, you’ll give us your aircar and help us do what we must.”
Okay, there went discreetness. Of course, time was running out, he realized now, and at least Hera wasn’t about to steal the vehicle behind their benefactors’ backs.
The old woman’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “You’re with the Undercurrent.”
Yeah, well, that had been pretty obvious, hadn’t it? Elei set a hand on the grip of his Rasmus, ready to threaten and bully their way out of this mess. The little boy gave him a wide-eyed look that made him wince.
Dammit. He kept his hand on his gun, but wasn’t so sure he’d draw it. He tried to look stern, at least, but his vision was still bleary and his head pounded. All he really wanted was to curl up somewhere and rest.
“We’ll help you,” the old woman said, pulling a key from her belt. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Take the aircar, but there’s barely enough dakron to reach the center and no more silla to mix it with. It won’t take you far.”
Hera swore softly under her breath.
“Mama, no. You can’t just give it to them!” The younger woman, Nera, made as if to stand, but she must’ve seen something forbidding in her mother’s face, because she sat back down and heaved a sigh. “Without the aircar, we’re done for, mama. You know it.”
“It’s a war, Nera, and it’s coming our way. We have to pick a side.”
“Maybe you do.” Nera’s mouth thinned. “I have Mal.” She patted the little boy on the back. “I can’t afford to take sides.”
She was putting her child above the world. How could Elei begrudge her that?
The silence grew, over-tense, ready to shatter.
Hera growled deep in her throat. “The key.” She strode over and plucked it from the old woman’s hand.
“Listen,” Elei said. “We will pay you back. I’ll find you.”
Nobody said anything, and Hera clenched her jaw as if to stop herself from saying something nasty. She turned on her heel and headed outside. Everyone got up, nodding their thanks, and trooped toward the door. Elei noted with relief that both Kalaes and Alendra were
moving under their own power.
He took one last look around the shabby room and the people who’d saved their lives, even if a bit unwillingly, tipped his head and left, closing the door behind him.
***
Hera drove them to the outskirts of the city, through empty streets and past deserted squares. The old vehicle sputtered and listed to the side. Its air cushion was struggling and the equalizers had seen better days.
Elei sat crammed in the back seat with Kalaes and Alendra, Cat perched on his shoulder.
“We need to contact Mantis,” Hera said as they turned into a street lined with shops, their fronts barred and dusty.
“Any idea how?” Kalaes muttered, checking his gun with shaky hands. He still looked gray about the face, and the spidery white marks of palantin on his neck blended with his skin.
Elei cringed when he saw a line of aircars ahead, but it wasn’t a blockade; they were leaving town. He turned and scanned the horizon toward the east. A low, malevolent cloud sat on the plain in the far distance. Dust. It rose in plumes, presaging the arrival of something huge.
“War machines?” Kalaes whispered, turning even paler.
“They’re still far,” Hera said. “But it’s obvious they’d move the war this way, away from Dakru City and Bone Tower.”
Shit. “I knew we wouldn’t be lucky for long.”
“Actually, luck is still on our side, even if it does not seem that way,” Hera said in that infuriatingly calm way of hers. “If the battle front is moving here, then this is where Mantis will be. He does not strike me as the sort to watch from afar.”
“He will be here,” Sacmis said. “If he’s alive.” The way she leaned closer to Hera, the way Hera smiled back at her... If Elei had to guess, he’d say they’d forgiven each other.
Elei bit his lip. “So is this the final stand of the resistance?”
Sacmis looked away and said nothing.
Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Page 73