by Myke Cole
“Can eat!” Marty said, racing back to them with a handful of shriveled and frostbitten-looking mushrooms. Britton looked at the Goblin doubtfully.
“I don’t know, Marty…”
The Goblin cast a worried eye at Therese. “Must eat,” he said more urgently, then sniffed the mushrooms, wiggling his ears and smacking his lips. “Can eat!”
“Do you think they’re safe?” Therese asked, raising an eyebrow. “He does have a knack with plants.”
Britton frowned. “He has a knack for medicinal plants, but these are plants he’s never seen before. He’s in a totally different world. Being hungry is bad, but getting sick right now would be a lot worse. Better not to risk it.”
He looked at Marty and shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. I think you need to curb your enthusiasm here.”
The Goblin looked annoyed and began to gesture wildly.
Britton sighed. “Please, guy. You’re at a ten. We need you at around a four.”
Therese giggled, and Marty stuffed the mushrooms into his pocket with a resigned wave of his hand.
A few of the enrollees had sagged against tree trunks in the magically heated air. Britton looked at Therese, sitting Indian style on the ground, her eyes drooping. “We’re exhausted,” Britton said to Swift. “Let’s give everyone a half hour to grab some shut-eye before we move.”
“You sure that’s safe?” Swift asked.
“No,” Britton answered, “but it’s probably smarter than blundering back into the Source ready to drop dead. Can you keep the air heated without that fire?”
Swift nodded, and Britton turned to Wavesign. “Can you get that put out, buddy?”
Wavesign’s effort was as uncontrolled as ever, but the fire was quickly doused, the rocks splintering further and hissing loudly. Swift quickly dried the damp patch that the young Hydromancer had left. “All right, people,” Britton said. “Grab some shut-eye if you can manage it. We go soon.”
He slumped alongside Therese and leaned against her shoulder. She didn’t respond, but neither did she push him away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I tried to do what I thought best…”
“Later, Oscar,” she said, her voice exhausted. “Later. Let’s get out of here first.”
He nodded and drowsed, grateful for the smell of her, the soft warmth of her shoulder against his.
The moon made a sparkling show of the trees and rocks as the enrollees gathered together for warmth. Swift’s heated air made that largely unnecessary, but Britton knew that the closeness to one another kept the panic at bay. They weren’t alone, and that was a start.
Britton closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the night—the frost crackling, insects foraging, Marty making an effort at quiet and failing miserably. The little Goblin was far too excited to rest, and he paced the small enclosure, staring at his surroundings. Britton himself thought he couldn’t sleep, the adrenaline keeping him awake and alert to sounds; turning each frost-snapped twig into the footfalls of an approaching enemy, but fatigue won out in the end.
He didn’t know how long he dozed, drifting in and out of consciousness against Therese’s shoulder. Fear and pain were momentarily forgotten. Britton sank into the warm glow of her nearness and drifted off to sleep.
A cold wind brushed his cheek, lifting him from the warm comfort of sleep and Therese nestled against him. The warm air had dissipated, replaced by the reality of winter cold. Britton buried his face in Therese’s hair and clung to the fleeing threads of his slumber. Beyond it lay cold and hardship, and if he could stave it off for just another moment, he would. But the chill breeze blew again, bringing a regular rhythm to his ears, a gentle and familiar pattern that called him to wakefulness. Whup whup whup whup whup.
Britton shot awake. It was the sound of a helicopter. He reached out his arm and accidentally swatted Marty, who must have crawled to snuggle up against his back. The Goblin stirred weakly, and Britton reached over and pressed a finger to his lips.
Whup whup whup. The sound grew louder, closer.
Therese stirred. “What’s…”
Britton shushed her fiercely and pointed upward.
As the sound of the rotors passed into the distance, Britton propped himself up on his elbows. All around their small makeshift camp, the enrollees were crouched in silence, casting terrified eyes skyward.
“What the hell was that?” Swift hissed.
“I don’t know,” Britton answered. “Could have been the Weather Channel, could have been the SOC. We can’t stick around to find out. Let’s get moving.”
He turned to Marty. “You ready?” Just where is this “safe” place you intend to take them? Will Marty’s tribe welcome you? Is anywhere really safe for any of you now?
Why was he there? Why was he doing this? He shuddered as he realized that he already knew the answer.
Because you don’t know what else to do. Because if you don’t move forward, you’ll just lie down and give up, and you’ve fought far too long and hard for that.
The group froze as the rotors pounded the air overhead again. They stood still, necks craned skyward until the helo passed overhead again, and the sound faded in the distance.
“They must be flying a search pattern,” Britton said. “It’s the only reason they would be going that slow.”
Britton was grateful for the thick clouds that had blown in while they slept. Little moon and even less starlight penetrated the forest canopy, leaving a black sea whose rocky bed was dotted with the gnarled columns of tree trunks. Night was thick around them.
“All right.” Britton used his best command voice, loud enough that the group winced and snapped their gazes to him. “Nothing more to be gained by hanging around. Let’s get this show on the road.”
CHAPTER XXXIII
BETRAYED
It is challenging to make a study of the effects of Latency on genetics. For one thing, Manifestation is extremely rare, and it is rarer still for two Latent individuals to mate and produce offspring under conditions that can be monitored for the purpose of scientific study. That said, there is promising statistical evidence to indicate that the children of Latent parents are much more likely to Manifest, and to do so at a very early age.
—Avery Whiting
Modern Arcana: Theory and Practice
The gate yawned across the clearing, eight feet high, its shimmering static surface offering a glimpse of the palisade wall in the distance. Long triangular banners draped down its surface, hidden in the darkness. Britton knew they were crudely painted in the likeness of a bird skull, striped red and orange.
“Heptahad On Dephapdt,” Marty whispered, his voice grave. “Sorrahhad. Much fight.”
Britton turned to the enrollees. “All right, the folks behind those walls may look just like Marty, but they are not friends. We get caught by these guys, and we’re done. But if we keep together, keep quiet, and keep moving, I’m confident we can get past them unnoticed. It’s a chance, but as rough customers as these folks are, they’re a cakewalk compared to the SOC, and it’s a far better bet than staying here. Everybody tracking?”
Swift nodded. “Peapod, I need you at the rear of the group, keep folks moving,” Britton said. She nodded and took up her position.
“All right, let’s do this.” Britton turned and stepped through the gate. He was briefly swamped by the intensity of his senses but shrugged it off, sighting the palisade wall and scanning the darkness for any movement. All was cloaked in shadow. Torchlight flickered from the turret that the creatures had repaired long since the rocket from one of the raiding Apaches had destroyed it. A new wooden structure jutted from one of the towers like some kind of cancerous growth, braced by roughly hewn crossbeams, crowned with a peaked slate roof. Its sides glistened wetly.
A water tower, Britton thought. They don’t want their Pyromancers busy putting out fires. They want them ready in case we come back.
Peapod ushered the last of the group through. They stood gapin
g at the giant palisade wall, pointing and whispering to one another. Britton shut the gate quickly and began herding them away from the fortress. Tired and injured, the group made slow going. Wavesign’s cloud pulsed with chunks of ice and hail, his terror magically palpable.
“It’s amazing,” Swift whispered to Britton, running his hands over the saw-toothed grass.
Britton put a hand in the small of his back, pushing him along. “Later. If we’re caught here, it’s going to get ugly.”
Swift slapped the hand down. “All right, all right. I’m moving.”
Britton opened his mouth to say something, and all words fled.
Directly before them, just a few meters away, a rickety tower had been erected. Wooden crossbeams supported a slate-covered platform some thirty feet from the ground. Above the platform, three logs rose, lashed together to form a crossbar.
A massive Roc sat astride it, black talons gripping the tree-trunk thickness tightly. Its feathers were fluffed outward against the cold, making it look even larger.
Not a crossbar, then, a perch.
Of course. It’s a watchtower. They want to be able to warn the main stronghold if another flight of Apaches comes in.
The group froze at the sight, but the giant bird had already sighted them; it cocked its huge head at an angle, and a single unblinking golden eye, the size of a dinner plate, fixed them.
About its neck clung a Goblin, his face buried in the creature’s feathers, body entirely covered in white paste.
For a moment, both Roc and human stood in stunned silence, broken only by the wind whispering over the grass and hissing through the wooden tower slats.
Then the Roc shrieked, spread massive wings, and exploded off the perch, circling over them.
A horn sounded, deep and sonorous. Britton remembered it blowing when the helo force had swept over that same fortress with him on board.
“Run!” he cried, pulling at the group, hauling them away.
They scattered as the bird swept low. It made a pass, claws reaching out to snatch at Swift, but Pyre pumped his fist, sending a gout of flame to singe its underbelly, forcing it to rear back, wings beating strong enough to sweep a gust of wind that knocked the group to their knees.
Britton could hear the fortress gates creaking open in the distance.
Peapod stood forward and placed her hands on her hips, concentrating. The massive bird recovered from the burn and dove again, straight at her, huge talons reaching.
Then it paused, and Britton felt a surge in Peapod’s flow as she Whispered desperately, competing for control over the Roc with the Goblin Terramancer on its back. The giant wings beat the air, and it swung its head side to side in confusion, crying out in alarm. But what little practice Peapod had ever had in Whispering was no match for the Goblin. Britton could see sweat breaking out on her forehead, her teeth gritting. Cries sounded from the fortress, and Britton saw that three more Rocs had taken flight, moving toward them. It wouldn’t take them long to arrive.
He stepped alongside Peapod, reaching out for the Goblin’s magical current. It was difficult to pick it out from all the others around him, but eventually he felt it, a foreign flow in the midst of so many familiar ones. He focused, Drawing the magic hard to him, then Binding it to the Goblin’s flow, cutting it off. In an instant, Peapod’s Whispering won out, and the Roc hurled itself skyward, righted, and launched itself toward its brothers as they winged toward it, shrieking a battle cry.
Peapod blew out her breath, placing her hands on her knees. “Whew, that was close.”
Britton panted, nodding. “Where’d you learn to Whisper?”
“A bug here, a sparrow there when folks aren’t looking. You figure it out.” Her voice was hoarse.
Britton smiled. “Good thing.”
The smile faded quickly. Even if they ran now, they would never outdistance the pursuing birds, and Britton couldn’t Suppress three Terramancers at once. Even if they could defeat the Rocs, it would slow them enough to bring the entire Goblin tribe running to the attack.
He spun on Marty, who was busy gathering up some of the enrollees cowering beneath the tower.
“Marty! Which way is your tribe?” Britton asked.
Marty blinked at him for a moment before pointing out across the field toward a long line of snowcapped trees. Britton sighted the line, imprinting it on his mind. He turned and opened a gate back on the clearing.
“Everybody move!” he shouted, grabbing the nearest of the group and nearly throwing him through. All came quickly this time, and Britton shut the gate behind them just as the first sweeps of the Rocs’ wings sounded nearby.
The group milled around uncertainly, some collapsing in the grass from terrified exhaustion.
“Now what the hell are we supposed to do?” Pyre said. “We’re right back where we started!”
“Hold on a second,” Britton replied. Man, I hope this works. He opened another gate as far as he could into the tree line that Marty had pointed out.
They reentered the Source deep among the trees. The Sorrahhad fortress was screened by the thick mass of trunks, but Britton could hear the cries of the Rocs as they circled the area where their quarry had suddenly vanished.
“Marty,” Britton said, but the Goblin was already pointing before he could ask the question. Britton memorized a distant hill before returning them all to the glade, then gated them out to it.
“Outstanding,” he said, clapping Therese on the back as soon as they returned. “This works. We won’t even have to hike it.” She stiffened at this touch, looked at her feet, then walked away.
Britton’s heart sank, but he pushed the emotion aside and gated them back. Leapfrogging between worlds, Britton carried them what he guessed was many miles in just a few steps. When they finally emerged on a low, rocky rise after the tenth hop, Britton saw a small hamlet in the distance. Mud houses crowded narrow dirt tracks, the roofs thatched with dried saw-toothed grass. A log wall, much smaller than the one they had just fled, surrounded it. Square blue banners dotted it at regular intervals. Even from that distance, Britton could make out the image of a gnarled tree embroidered into the surface.
Beyond the wall, small garden plots stretched alongside sheds. Low wooden pens enclosed the same squat, hairy livestock that he’d seen when he’d attacked the Goblin fastness. Smoke rose from cooking fires beyond the palisade wall. Britton thought he could hear faint music, rhythmic and atonal.
Marty let out a sound that could only have been a sigh and pointed again. “There. Mattab On Sorrah. Home.”
Britton laughed out loud, then choked as it quickly became a sob.
Because, for now, he had saved them.
The Goblins met them some distance outside the gates, astride the backs of giant wolves. A few Goblin Druids, their skins painted white, walked among them, but the wolf riders were warriors with dotted faces less elaborate than Marty’s. They held spears, swords, and US military-issue carbines far too large for their small bodies, and wore leather jerkins studded with a pattern that resembled the tree from the banners.
At their head was a giant of a Goblin, still smaller than even Wavesign by a head; a mail hauberk was draped around his shoulders and he carried a huge spear bearing a banner matching those on the walls. His face was patterned in white dots that matched Marty’s exactly.
The group paused, uncertain how to proceed, but Marty strode to the front of the group, shrugging off his parka and squaring his shoulders, suddenly oblivious to the cold. He seemed taller, radiating a confidence that Britton had never seen in him before. Gone was the curious, childlike creature that had shivered in the woods just a little while ago. He barked out a few words quickly in his language, his voice resonating the command that Britton knew the best military officers could invoke.
The Goblins’ eyes widened. Marty barked another word, raising his hands, his ears standing up straight over his head. The Goblins reacted, the riders leaping off their wolves and dragging at the reins u
ntil the creatures lay down on the ground. The entire party tapped their eyes, bowing deeply. The white-painted Goblin sorcerers also bowed, but only slightly and from the waist, also tapping their eyelids. When they looked up again, their faces were joyful, and a few cried out what Britton only guessed were greetings, coming forward to brush their fingers against Marty’s closed eyelids or the tips of his ears. Marty endured it all with an air of entitlement, his hands on his hips to allow the group to get close.
All except the spear bearer, who stood, clearly unsettled, the weapon resting in the crook of his arm. One of the sorcerers remained with him, exchanging whispers. When the greetings were complete, Marty turned back to Britton. His lordling face was gone, and he was friendly Marty again, grinning like a happy child.
“See?” he asked, beaming. “Important.”
Britton laughed, clapping Swift on the back. “No doubt, buddy. Important as hell.”
Marty wiggled his ears and led them into the gate, the wolf riders falling in as escorts around them, the spear bearer going in front, crying out what Britton guessed was a heralding of their arrival.
The village clustered around a broad plaza, the ground flat and covered with a carpet of moss that looked dry and comfortable. Ten glass-smooth stone chairs were arranged in a semicircle around a huge and ancient tree, wide and stunted like some giant bonsai. Britton recognized it as the tree from the banners on the palisade wall. Ten blue-robed, white-painted sorcerers, their ears sprouting tufts of long white hair, were already taking their seats. Ringed around them were scores of Goblins, large and small. Britton recognized tiny children, as cute in their minority as they were ugly as adults. Females stood around the perimeter of the circle, wearing brown shifts that exposed single, long brown breasts. Some of them had the nipples pierced with a sparkling jewel of some sort, their faces painted with dotted patterns. The other females clustered around them in deference.
The huge spear bearer stood forward and began a speech in his language that seemed to go on for a long time, while the seated Goblins listened, nodding occasionally. Britton turned to Marty to ask him what was going on, but was silenced with a wave. Whatever was happening, he was not to interrupt. At last, the spear bearer gestured back to Marty, who stepped forward, cutting him off. He launched into his own speech, bowing and tapping his eyes.