City Under Ice

by TE Olivant

  He was dead before he hit the ground. I just killed someone, I told myself as I sat up on the snow. I just killed someone. I should have felt sick, but I felt nothing at all. A wheezing sound drew my eyes to the side. It was Felkyo. She was trying to sit up.

  “Stay still,” I said as I crawled over to her, worried that she had broken her back from the fall.

  “Not yet,” she said and clambered to her feet. “Thanks,” she said quickly, then ran off to re-join the battle.

  “Lisanne!” My mother ran towards me, her legs struggling with the unfamiliar surface. I looked at the gun still in my hand the put it down carefully on the ice. I didn’t have a chance to speak before she swept me into an embrace.

  I pulled myself away after a second. When had my mother last hugged me, I wondered? For a moment we simply sat there awkwardly while the battle raged around us.

  “I’m sorry...” The words were so longed for, but this was not the time.

  “Not now.”

  “I know, but later. I was so wrong about you. I listened to everything the Leader said. I never knew that he meant to kill anyone.”

  “That’s good, but we have to get you somewhere safe...”

  “There’s no time. The leader’s locked himself in the tank.”

  “Well that’s fine, he can’t go anywhere.”

  “You don’t understand. The tank can’t move but the gun is still active. He’s going to shoot them all. It’s the same weapon that he used before. Everyone will die.”

  She had barely finished speaking but I was off across the ice.

  “Kyrk!” I screamed and headed towards his answering call. He was helping a Builder who had been wounded onto a deer. Most of the underground fighters had fallen, and I could hear hardly any sounds of gunfire. But from what my mother had said, that didn’t matter.

  “The tank, it can still fire,” I explained, and told Kyrk what my mother had said. His eyes narrowed and he ran towards the tank without another word.

  Chapter 22: Kyrk

  I ran towards the tank. As I powered forward I tried to ignore the scenes around me. There seemed to be bodies everywhere, both friends and enemies. The snow was stained with fresh red blood.

  My legs were tired and my arm ached from Yohan’s cut which had been reopened in all the fighting. I used every ounce of strength in my Hunter body to push me towards the tank, faster and faster.

  And then suddenly I was in front of it. Even half submerged in the crevasse the tank towered over me, the long pipe that must surely be a weapon pointing above my head. And I realised that I didn’t have a plan. I had a short knife and no other weapon. I took a step back and looked around in desperation. How could I stop this metal beast?

  My eye was drawn to some horizontal shapes on the side above the still spinning metal tracks. Handholds. I crouched down and leapt above the tracks, my claws scrabbling for a moment until I stuck to the side like moss on a rock. Hand over hand I pulled myself upwards until I was standing on the thing’s roof.

  A searing pain stabbed my right side. I fell prone, gasping from the pain. Stupid, I thought. Standing on top of the tank I would have been an easy target for any enemy with a gun. I peeked over the edge of the tank, trying to ignore the burning streak of agony each time I moved.

  The man was still there, looking up at me. I ducked backwards and heard the ping of metal as the man fired again. Then I heard a cry of rage.

  Felkyo smacked the man over the head with a spear then kicked the gun from his unconscious hand in one smooth movement. She looked up at me, her eyes blazing.

  “Go!”

  I half crawled, half staggered across the roof of the tank until I found the round door that the strangers had come out of. Luck was with me for once as it was half open, and I wrenched it upwards.

  The inside of the tank smelt of old air and sweat. I squeezed down the tunnel that was clearly made for people much smaller than me. The bright artificial lights hurt my eyes and the whole thing felt unnatural and wrong. Every hair on my body bristled in repulsion.

  A man stood in front of some sort of control machine. He hadn’t heard me come in. He was so tiny that I could have ripped him in half with my bare arms.

  I stepped forward, planning to do just that, but something made him turn around.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  The man looked more annoyed than scared. If his arrogance could have killed we’d all have been dead already.

  “I’ve come to stop you,” I said, taking another step forward.

  “How brave,” he sneered and my claws twitched. “So you have come to kill an unarmed man.”

  “Hardly unarmed.” I said, pointing at the controls.

  “That’s true. But this you cannot stop. Even if you kill me. The missiles are on an automated program. In a few minutes they will fire, with or without me.”

  The pain in my side throbbed. I was finding it hard to think.

  “You don’t have to destroy the city. You can still stop all this.”

  “I’m not going to aim at the city, you fool. Why would I want the city destroyed? That’s where my people are going to live.”

  “Then where?” I still didn’t understand. Then I looked at one of the boxes of light in front of them. It was a grainy picture of hundreds of people just sitting out on the White. The evacuees from the city.

  “You can’t,” I said, bile rising in my throat.

  “Do you know when my ancestors first built our city we had a terrible cockroach problem. Horrid things, cockroaches. Big insects that are damned hard to kill. But we exterminated them just the same. You do what you have to in order to survive in this world. And my people are excellent survivors.”

  I couldn’t hold back any longer. In two strides I grabbed him and held him up by the throat.

  “Tell me how to stop it!”

  The man gasped for air but said nothing. I threw him down on the floor where he lay in a crumpled heap. I turned to the panels of flashing lights and buttons in front of me. I had no idea what to do.

  “One of the buttons is marked self-destruct. It would blow us to pieces. Shame you can’t read,” the Leader croaked from the floor.

  “No, but I can.”

  Lisanne stood in the doorway, a gun in her hand.

  “Traitor child,” the Leader said as he struggled to his feet but I pushed him back down again.

  “The weapons are set on the evacuees, Lisanne, you need to stop them.”

  She was already in front of the metal panels, scanning them desperately.

  “I’ve got the self-destruct button.”

  “You hit that and we all die.” The Leader said to her. “It’s a three minute timer. You’ll never get far enough away from the blast.”

  Lisanne looked at me and I nodded. She hit the button.

  “Time to go,” I said, and Lisanne was already running past me to the ladder. “Come on,” I snarled at the man on the floor and hauled him to his feet.

  “Take your hands off me.”

  “Fine.”

  I scrambled towards the ladder and followed Lisanne up. Each second that we climbed felt like an age. There was no way we could get far enough from the tank in time, but we had to try.

  We came out into the sunshine and Lisanne pulled me to my feet. I had to grit my teeth at the pain.

  “Let’s go,” she said and I staggered after her.

  I hadn’t seen the Leader climb out of the tank so the first I knew was when he flung himself at my back. Normally I would have shrugged him off like a flake of snow but he punched into the exact place where the gun had shot me. I snarled in pain, my whole side on fire.

  He was on top of me now, his flailing hands at my face. He gouged at my eyes and I grabbed his arms. For a moment I stared at his rage torn face then I threw him off me. He slid over the smooth roof of the tank and caught the edge of the hole. For a moment he managed to hold on then he twisted and fell through the opening. There was silence.

&n
bsp; Lisanne looked over the edge.

  “Dead,” she said. “His neck’s broken.”

  A few shouts from the ground caught my attention and I saw Felkyo and some of the others running towards us.

  “Get back,” I shouted, “it’s about to explode.”

  I turned to Lisanne. There was no time left.

  “Kyrk,” she said then pulled me close.

  I put my arms around her. “It’s okay,” I whispered.

  “Kyrk,” she said again, “time to jump.”

  And she took a running jump off the tank into the crevasse. For a split second I stared at empty space, then with a roar I jumped down after her. A second later there was an explosion and the world went from white to black.

  When I came to I saw only Lisanne’s face, beautiful and fierce.

  “Thank god, Kyrk. I thought...” I forced myself to sit up although I couldn’t help but groan. We were in the crevasse, but fortunately we had only fallen a few metres. We had landed on an ice shelf. I craned my head upwards to see black smoke billowing across the sky.

  “Stay still, we’re sending down a rope.” Was that Scyre’s voice? Had he survived? My aching limbs made it hard to care.

  Fresh agonies awaited as my bruised body was pulled out of the crevasse. The tank still burned, and even though we were downwind it stank.

  I must have passed out for a while because when I came to again an old Doctor was examining me and putting balm on my singed skin.

  “You’re lucky,” he said. I glanced across to my right and saw several bodies laid to rest under furs. He was right.

  Despite the Doctor’s protestations that I should be resting I found myself walking back across the snow. I knew that I needed to find out what was happening.

  It didn’t take me long to find the strangers. At the foot of the cliffs the men and women from underground had been rounded up. By the looks of things, every one that hadn’t been killed had surrendered.

  And there was Lisanne, her head still held high even though her clothes were stained with soot and blood. She stood in between her people and mine.

  “My people surrender. They ask for your mercy.”

  Scyre looked back at her, his stance combative. “Many people have died today.”

  “And there will be justice, I promise you. But for now I ask that you be merciful.”

  My former Chief stared at her but Lisanne just looked into his eyes with total calm.

  “You will have your mercy. We are not savages, whatever your people might think. It would not be fitting to the memory of Dubh to cause more bloodshed on this day.”

  Lisanne nodded. “I have only one other condition.”

  Scyre’s mouth turned up. “You ask a lot, girl.”

  “But not too much. My friend, Angel Sam, is badly injured. If he hadn’t helped us we would never have saved your people. I ask for the Seekers to bring him back to the underground city. Without that medicine he will die.”

  Scyre frowned at looked to Ealsa who whispered advice in his ear. I wondered how the Hunter would find being Chieftain – he didn’t seem to find diplomacy easy.

  “The boy may return to your city. As may the survivors. But we will ask for compensation for the trouble your people have caused.”

  “I’m sure some kind of trade can be arranged. But I am not a politician, as you know. Perhaps the new Leader should discuss this with you.”

  A tall woman with black hair and a narrow face stepped forward. I knew who she must be. I turned away from the scene and began the slow walk up the ridge, away from the battlefield.

  Up on the ridge you could barely smell the black smoke that had smothered the tank. I had turned my back to the battlefield and looked down on the city. People were already beginning to return, scurrying back to their homes. I wondered if they already knew who was dead and who had survived. News travels fast and bad news always went even faster.

  I didn’t have to look round to see it was Lisanne when a figure came up beside me. I knew her from her delicate footsteps on the snow, the sound of her gentle breathing. The calm way she stood beside me and waited until I was ready to speak.

  “It should never have happened.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I let out a breath. “Lisanne, you of all people have nothing to apologise for.”

  She shook her head.

  “How many died?” I asked.

  “We’re not sure exactly yet. Four doctors, including Dubh. Three Hunters. Maybe as many as a dozen Builders...”

  “What about your people?”

  Lisanne eyes glistened. “Most of the men with guns surrendered when it was clear that they were going to lose. At least ten died before then, not including the Leader.”

  I felt a grim satisfaction. I would not mourn their deaths.

  “Many more would have died if you hadn’t stopped them.” Lisanne looked off at the snow, as trying to convince herself.

  “Yes,” I said again and I turned to face Lisanne. She had a fur pulled round her head and shoulders that swept over most of her body. From a distance she might pass for one of us.

  “I thought if we saved the city –” She stopped, lost for words, but I knew exactly what she meant.

  “That we’d feel like heroes? That everything would be better? This is just the beginning for us, Lisanne. From now on everything changes.”

  An eagle soared overhead. Its wingtips stretched out, feeling for thermals. It ignored the people below and arched west, swooping out of sight behind the black ridge that surrounded the city. I wondered what small creature would soon be meeting its end.

  “What happens next?”

  “It’s up to them, I guess.” We turned to look back down on the new leaders.

  “You should be the one leading them,” Lisanne said, her eyes on Scyre.

  I laughed. “I was going to say the same about you. But maybe our people need someone they know. There’s going to be a lot of new challenges coming. It might be better if it’s people they trust.”

  Lisanne shrugged but I could see she wasn’t convinced.

  “Do you think...” I asked slowly, “Do you think that your mother will do a good job?”

  Lisanne’s face hardened. “If she doesn’t then she knows I won’t stand for it. I’m going to be watching her every step of the way.”

  We stood side by side and watched the figures below us, too far away to hear their words. A hand slipped into mine and I couldn’t help but smile. I gripped it back and it felt like hope.

  Afterword

  I hope you enjoyed City Under Ice. You can find out what happens to Lisanne, Kyrk and all the others in Snow Fall, Book 2 of the Into the White series, available from your ebook retailer.

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