by Cara Bristol
Once they descended the ridge, they would enter Qalin’s province.
“Cachinna are not even a native species!” she complained.
After multitudes died in the Great Plague spread by the disease-carrying drakor, Parseon could not keep up with cremation. To prevent the further spread of illness, Parseon imported an alien species of insect, which fed off the decaying flesh of Parseonoid species. A small swarm of cachinna could pick a body clean in minutes. “Cachinna serve a function,” Urazi said, and jerked his gaze from the ravine to focus on the conveyance ahead. Nervous sweat beaded, despite the chill. “Especially in time of war,” he added. Better to talk about the noxious, disgusting beetle than to focus on the steep drop. If something happened to startle the beasts…. “That is probably why we are seeing more of them now.”
“Well, I wish they would go back to the planet they came from!”
“I do, too.” The insects’ consumption of decaying flesh did not bother him as much as a ludicrous a notion that cachinna possessed intelligence. The last one had cocked its head like it was committing Urazi’s face to memory. Your day will come. I will be back for you. And its buzz! Urazi shuddered. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was a laugh.
Anika glanced at him. “I am glad you are riding with me.”
“I thought you could use the company.” Not a lie, but not the truth either. When they entered Qalin’s territory, Urazi wanted to stay near. He’d leaped aboard her conveyance first thing that morning, rather than joining Luka in accordance with the rotation schedule. The beta wasn’t happy about it, but he could not challenge an alpha.
From the wagon bed, a cry arose from the females. Anika could not investigate because she held the reins, so Urazi twisted around. “What is going on back there?” he shouted above the clatter.
One of the females pointed to a rapidly approaching black cloud.
“Monto!” he swore. “Take cover!” he yelled at the females. “Use that!” He gestured to a tarpaulin used as a night shelter. Two breeders scrambled over the others to unroll it, stretch it out.
“What is it?” Anika cried, and the beasts veered left as she lost focus and loosened one tether.
Urazi snatched the reins from her hands. Over the thunder of hooves rose the sound of laughter.
Anika’s expression turned horrified. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. It is a swarm of cachinna.”
The words had no sooner left his mouth before they were enveloped in a sickeningly sweet, black cloud of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of noxious, laughing beetles. He could feel the breeze generated by the furious beating of wings as the cachinna kept pace with the conveyance. The overpowering stench threatened to gag him. Anika squealed and tugged her uniform shirt to cover her mouth and nose.
Urazi braced his feet against the floorboard and wrapped the reins around his fists. Keep the beasts on the road. Just keep them on the road.
Cachinna streamed over the top of the conveyance and around the sides, filling the air space in front of them. Beetles dove at their faces. The beasts’ antlers turned a shimmering black with roosting cachinna. Urazi could feel the frightened animals fighting the bit, and he yanked with all his might on the reins.
A single cachinna hovered a finger’s length from Urazi’s face and waved its antennae, but he could do nothing except smell the insect, catalog every spiky hair on its ugly, glistening body. The same cachinna from before? The idea was as crazy as the notion the insect knew he found it revolting and taunted him. Then it laughed and zipped into the horde.
Finally, the swarm buzzed ahead and enveloped the next conveyance. So thick were the cachinna, Urazi lost sight of the second transport, but heard the females aboard scream, Luka shout, and the beasts squeal. Seconds later, the beast-drawn conveyance broke through the black cloud of insects and plunged over the mountainside. The swarm divided, half pursuing the conveyance into the ravine, the rest surging toward Perce’s transport.
Beside him, Anika clapped her hand over her mouth. Tears streamed from her eyes.
The cachinna enveloped Perce’s conveyance but he managed to maintain control of the beasts, and the cachinna flew away with an angry buzz.
Urazi clung to the reins, using all his strength to keep his beasts hugging the mountain.
“All those people.” Anika wept. “There must have been thirteen breeders in the conveyance. And Luka. Dead. They’re all dead.”
Murdered by the cachinna—as if the insects had worked together to spook the beasts and force the vehicle off the road. Urazi’s team began to slow as the animal’s panic subsided.
Anika touched his arm. “You did well to control the beasts. I do not think I would have been able to do so.”
He shook his head, unable to accept her praise. “I believe it was more luck than strength or skill that saved us.”
“I have never encountered a swarm before,” she said.
“Neither have I.” Cachinna would teem over a body until it appeared solid black, but he had never known the beetles to travel en mass. Never known them to deliberately cause a death so they could feed. A horrifying idea.
“I wish I knew what had attracted the swarm,” Anika said.
* * * *
Sometimes it was better not to know, Anika concluded.
She and Urazi had descended the mountain quiet and sober, the lone conveyance ahead of them an ever-present reminder of the calamitous loss. Solemnity transformed to horror anew when they entered Qalin’s province. On both sides of the road, a wall of yellow-white bones stretched as far as her eye could see.
Animals. Let them belong to animals.
But when she forced herself to make a closer autopsy, the shape of the skulls, the bloodstained alpha-gray, beta-brown, and even breeder-beige uniforms still attached to the skeletons dashed any such hope. The bones belonged to Parseons.
She wished she could crawl under the tarp where the other females had hidden, but honor would not allow it. For whatever atrocity had afflicted these Parseons, they deserved to have their deaths noticed. She swallowed. “This is what drew the cachinna that swarmed our conveyances.”
“Yes.” Tension bracketed Urazi’s mouth.
As the road narrowed and the conveyance rolled so close to the macabre wall she could lean out and touch it, she spied a few stray carrion beetles pulling at clumps of tissue clinging to the skeletal remains. Anika flung herself sideways and vomited.
When she righted, Urazi handed her the water bag. She tipped her head back, poured a stream into her mouth, swished, and spat outside the conveyance.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I will work through it.” Anika took a deep breath and exhaled, trying block the wall from her line of sight. Females learned early in life how to “guard their gaze,” to avoid seeing that which they were not supposed to observe. The skill served her in good stead now.
“What could have caused so many deaths?” Tens of thousands? Her body knew. The answer lay in her rigid muscles, in the cold sweat dampening her nape. In something worse than cachinna.
“Qalin.” Urazi confirmed her worst suspicion. “From the numbers, I would surmise most are ‘enemy combatants’ killed and stolen from the battlefield, but many others are dissidents or those he perceived as defective. I suspect he is cleansing his province.”
“So he dragged their bodies here and dumped them?”
“To warn others who might challenge his rule.”
Chilling. Effective.
Urazi looked at her. “We can turn back.”
“How?” She jerked her head toward Perce’s conveyance.
“We probably will stop for one final respite. We could leave the convoy then. Perce is so close to Qalin’s headquarters, he will not chase us. Ylos could drive this transport, and the two of them could proceed. They might not consider us significant enough to expend the guard force to hunt for us.”
“We would have to go on foot. Either deepe
r into Qalin’s territory or past all these bodies.”
“Those are our options.” He nodded.
Anika feared if they moved deeper into the Alpha’s territory, surrounded by his guards, sympathizers, and loyal citizens, they would never escape. Not that it would matter—because Parseon seemed destined to fall to Qalin. But could she trudge step-by-step past his victims’ bodies without screaming? They must have ridden three or four kilometers, and bodies still walled in the road. No wonder Qalin needed breeders—he had to replenish the population. How would society progress if a dearth of alphas existed to defend it, if not enough betas were around to keep it running?
“Do you prefer to abandon the…plan?” Anika asked. They had no plan. Just an agreement of what needed to be done—kill Qalin. The bodies had demonstrated what an ill-fated objective they pursued. How could a lone female and a beta achieve what the combined elite forces of three Alphas could not?
Inscrutable, Urazi betrayed no sign of his feelings. “I asked you,” he said.
Anika recalled her sense of power as she sneaked from Marlix’s abode. With a dagger strapped to her thigh, she’d felt like a warrior. She’d been like a child armed with a stick attacking pretend invaders. Perhaps Marlix had been right to pledge her to Ilian. Even Urazi had urged acceptance. But she’d rejected her duty—and a noble one to serve an Alpha—out of some vague discontent, some naive notion of freedom.
Betas, even alphas, did not have the liberty to do as they pleased. Why should she, a female, be granted the privilege of freedom?
Anika stared at her hands, clasped so tight the skin over the joints had blanched. Females produced offspring. Served as vessels for betas to achieve sexual release. Performed the work males refused to do. A life without status, to be sure, but insulated to large degree from the harsher realities. Would serving Ilian have been so bad?
She had not expected the cachinna, so much destruction, the violence. She had killed a male without any compunction, had struck a member of her own gender—a breeder in more dire straits than she.
Anika stared at the wall of bones. Were the remains of Commander Dak, and little Berik part of it? Anika expelled a shuddering breath, and then sought Urazi’s eyes. “I will not give up,” she said. “I wish to proceed.”
Holding the reins on the right, Urazi grasped Anika’s hand with his left, his fingers threading between hers in an intimate manner. She imagined the breeders gawking. He squeezed. “I wish to proceed also.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “You should know I would die for you.”
“Do not talk like that.” To speak of such challenged fate to make it so. “Neither of us is going to die,” she said vehemently.
“We must accept—”
“No! I will not allow you to die. You will live. Do you understand?”
Urazi blinked, and then roared with laughter. He raised her hand to his mouth, pressed his lips to her knuckles, then laughed some more.
She gaped. He has gone over the edge. Lost his mind. Either that or he was making jest of her. She wanted to save him, and he found it funny? She yanked her hand free of his grasp.
He sobered and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “Do not be angry.”
“You enjoyed humor at my expense.” She fumed.
“Not at you. At the situation.”
“What did you find that was so funny?”
“You commanded me to live. I am not used to taking orders from a female, but you have boxed me into a corner. I cannot say I will not do what you have dictated, now can I?”
Anika’s lips twitched. “I guess not.”
Chapter Fifteen
Their conveyance swayed past the last of the bodies, and Anika expelled a sigh of relief. While her purpose and resolution did not flag, she carried the gruesome evidence of Qalin’s atrocities like hefty stones in a pack. As Urazi had speculated, the grisly display would deter many from insurrection.
In the distance, a wavy, glinting ephemeron shimmered. Mirage? She squinted. “A hologram,” she deduced.
“I think so,” Urazi said.
As the conveyance approached, perspective shifted and, before her eyes, the image grew larger, taking shape and form into a male, his face more disfigured than Icor’s. Even in a society which placed no favor on beauty, his terrifying ugliness stood out. The bones of his skull fused into a ridged forehead over patchy brows framing two sunken, baleful eyes, the left smaller and drooping lower than the right. A cruel smile twisted thin lips. She knew without being told, without ever having seen him, it was Qalin.
About every kilometer, another larger-than-life hologram would arise out of the desolation, ensuring Qalin could not be put out of mind.
How had such a male ascended to Alpha? Why had the High Council members voted him in? His psychopathy appeared as stark and clear as if Nature had generated bone, muscle, and tissue from barbarity itself. The present outcome had been set into play the moment Qalin had taken a seat at the High Council table.
“Were there no other contenders?” she murmured. New Alphas were approved by a vote of the High Council, but candidates first entered Alpha academy to prove and hone their worthiness.
“Qalin’s sire and his before him were Alpha. One does not inherit the status, but it carries tremendous influence, so much so that it is unheard of for a challenger to defeat a Commander’s son.
“That is why sons are so important,” Urazi added. “An Alpha needs one for his legacy to continue. In my beta training, my history of Parseon instructor informed us no credible rivals emerged to challenge Qalin. And with his sire and his grand sire having ruled over the province….”
“Were there really no worthy adversaries, or did Qalin or his sire eliminate them?” Anika asked.
“No one dared to speculate,” Urazi said in a hushed tone.
As they approached another hologram, Perce gestured from his vehicle to a widened area in front of the image. Anika was loath to tarry beneath a giant Qalin, even if it was a pattern of light waves. But they needed to stretch their legs, and the females would need to relieve their bladders.
Anika signaled she would follow.
After pulling off the road, Anika and Urazi led the females from both conveyances to a copse of scrubby trees. Several times she caught Zala watching her and Urazi, but she ignored her. If she engaged the other female, Anika would be forced to take an unconscionable action.
While Ylos watered the beasts, Perce perched on a rock and dug at the ground with his dagger.
After they reboarded the females, they joined Perce. He stood at their approach, and inclined his head toward to the hologram.
“Have you ever met my sire?”
Rarely did anyone encounter an Alpha of Parseon. The rulers of their planet did not deign to walk among the hamlets where commoners lived. Dak had stood as the lone exception, frequenting the Market and the Terran Bazaar he’d established in his province. “I have not had the honor,” she said.
“Nor I,” Urazi added.
“I shall introduce you both and tell him how helpful you have been.”
She and Urazi needed that kind of access to identify Qalin’s vulnerabilities, but Anika could not think of anything she desired less than meeting the Alpha face to face. His holographic image was frightening enough, and she worried he would see through her disguise. Nepotism might have facilitated his ascendancy, but that did not mean he lacked intelligence.
Though Parseon valued valor and might, Alphas possessed a keen perspicacity enabling them to hold onto their positions. Or she had thought they did. She questioned the foresight of the High Council members who had voted in Qalin.
“He is our Alpha. We did what any citizen would do,” Urazi said.
“Well, I appreciate your support.” Perce’s attention flicked to hologram, and his shoulders drooped.
He’s afraid! He fears his own sire.
Anika studied Perce. He was much younger than she had originally had surmised, not even her age. His forehead lacked t
he ridged prominence of Qalin’s, and his eyes were symmetrically spaced and of close-enough size that the slight discrepancy would go unnoticed unless one examined his features very closely—as she was doing now. While he bore a faint likeness to his sire, the resemblance had been ameliorated by the genetics of his breeder. Unfortunately for Perce. No doubt Qalin would desire a son more similar to him.
“It will not be long before we arrive at my sire’s abode,” Perce deadpanned, his lack of enthusiasm revealing scrolls of information.
“We are looking forward to it,” Anika lied.
“I am to enter Alpha training next year.” Perce confirmed her hunch about his youth. “My sire has deployed me on missions in his service to prepare me.”
“He is wise. I have heard Alpha training is so rigorous that most who enter do not survive,” Urazi said.
Perce paled.
“You are the first-born son then?” Anika inquired.
“I am the only son. My sire has spawned dozens of offspring but they are female.” Perce rubbed his palms against the sides of his uniform pants. “After this assignment, I am to enlist in his guard force and join the crusade against those Alphas who seek to destroy Parseon.” He blinked rapidly, appearing very young and terrified.
He is not alpha material, though he wears the cloth of one. She should hate him, since he would be joining forces against Marlix and Ilian and all she used to hold dear, but found herself empathizing with his plight. Perce served at the whims of his Alpha—who happened to be his sire. His position held great status, but also jeopardy, and his path in life had been chosen by his birth.
“Without having a body as proof, I fea—I am concerned my sire may question my assertion that the female known as Anika is dead. He may be displeased that an entire conveyance of breeders was lost as well.”