Innocence Lost

by O. J. Lowe

  At least he could still put one foot in front of another for now. By the time they caught up with Brendan and Aubemaya, Reeves was gasping for breath, his eyes bloodshot and dazed.

  “Don’t tell me you broke our Vedo, Agent Wilsin,” Brendan said, shaking his head.

  Wilsin didn’t have chance to reply, the smell of smoke and jungle starting to get to him, the stench filtering through every pore in his skin, thick and cloying in his nostrils. He was starting to get sick of this place. A return to civilisation couldn’t come fast enough. Behind them, the fires still burned, he just hoped they’d hold out a bit longer. If those things came through, they’d be screwed. Brendan had Suchiga over his shoulder, would have to drop him to fight. Reeves was spent. Wilsin himself had very little power left in his weapons, nowhere near enough to kill one, never mind them all.

  This might have gone better had he not believed the green king would have put them all to death anyway. He knew his name, what he’d done back on Carcaradis Island and for all his promises about letting them live, he didn’t trust his word one iota. Fighting to survive had felt like the only option and thankfully, it was one he was good at.

  He hoped he’d be good enough. He hoped they’d all be good enough. In the distance, he thought he could hear engines. A glance around revealed nothing, the skies empty of anything but the beating sun bathing them in its rays.

  Come on! Hurry up! We can’t last much longer out here!

  Wilsin tried to push it aside, just focus on getting up to the top of the rock, Reeves at his shoulder, Brendan and Suchiga keeping pace with them. Aubemaya, unhindered, lead the way, her slim legs pumping as she ran like a rabbit, not slowing or hesitating. That would be fatal for all of them.

  Chapter Twenty-Three. Cradle to the Grave.

  “I always thought Cradle Rock was a myth, an allegory. I believed once it was real, but in truth, just because something existed millennia ago does not mean a trace of it might linger today. So much of the old ways have been lost to us, I fear with the advance of technology and our obsession with the future, we risk losing sight of the past.”

  Jeremiah Blut.

  They hit the top of Cradle Rock, nowhere else to go, and Wilsin couldn’t help feeling they’d been cornered. At the peak, he could see that there wasn’t much to scream about, a flat area about the size of the average spirit calling arena, bare, hard rock underfoot. He wondered idly if this was where Gilgarus had stood all those years ago when he made that proclamation Fazarn had told them about. Felt like a lifetime ago he’d listened to those words.

  Brendan moved towards the centre, lowered Suchiga down gently, a look of concern on his face. The injured Burykian’s face twitched, a moan slipped his lips. Couldn’t be easy for any of them, Wilsin thought. He wouldn’t have liked to have done this with two broken arms, possible other unseen injuries.

  “Let me go,” Reeves said, wriggling in his grasp. “I’m good, I’m okay.” He tried to stand up of his own accord, almost fell and caught himself, the flat of his hand smacking against the stone as his legs gave way. “I can do this.”

  “Ben, you can barely stand up,” Wilsin said. “Think about it.” He put a hand on his shoulder, gently held him. “You look like you’ve hit your limits!”

  “Vedo have no limits!”

  “Everyone has limits,” Wilsin said, keeping his voice calm and soothing. “There’s no shame in that. You’ve fought a good fight, you’ve kept us alive for so far.” He glanced back towards the path, then around the area. Resignation tugged at his heart, he didn’t know how long they had before the fires burned out and those things started to swarm them. Up here, they’d be surrounded, couldn’t hold them off forever.

  They had to try though. Another look to the sky. Nothing.

  Come on!

  He clenched his fist, felt the bite of his nails in his palm. They had to come. They had to. It had been hours now, surely, they couldn’t have been delayed for that long.

  Please!

  He didn’t hold much truck with prayer, he was considering it as a viable option. He didn’t have much else. He looked at Suchiga, made his choice. “Ben, I need you to keep Suchiga safe. He can’t stand at all, let alone fight. We’ll try and keep them away from you, but I need to know you’ll get them if any get past us.”

  Reeves looked like he wanted to argue, Wilsin smiled at him. “Please. You might not be able to do what you want, but you need to do what you can. World would be a better place if there was more of that.”

  Next thing he knew, he felt something being pressed into his hands, he looked down and saw the shining cylinder of Reeves’ kjarnblade. “Take it,” Reeves said. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  “I can’t,” Wilsin said. “It’s yours, and I don’t know…”

  “You push and swing,” the Vedo said. “Don’t hold the button in. Just push it once to activate it, that end’s where the blade comes from.” He managed a grin. “Don’t get that wrong, whatever you do. It’ll be painful otherwise. Probably better than those machetes for the job. Real mystic man’s weapon, this.”

  “Don’t you need some sort of special connection to the Kjarn?”

  Reeves laughed, almost choked on it, the words coming out in bitter spurts. Blood dribbled down around the corners of his lips. “David, we’ve all got a special connection to the Kjarn. It calls louder in some than in others, but that doesn’t mean that it ignores the rest of you. Go. I’ll keep Suchiga safe if it kills me.”

  Wilsin truly hoped it didn’t come to that as he hefted the blade’s hilt, testing it. Looking at the way Reeves had handled the weapon, he guessed there’d be very little weight to the energy blade and he’d need to compensate. Of course, Reeves could enhance his movements and his reflexes, an ability he lacked.

  He just hoped he didn’t make a fool of himself as he watched Reeves limp over to sit down next to Suchiga, he turned and walked to stand with Brendan and Aubemaya. Both had spirit summoners out, he had a feeling it might not be enough.

  “We fight, or we die,” Brendan said. “We’ve come too far to go down without a fight. We cannot fall here.” His right eye twitched as he spoke. Weird. “We kill them before they kill us. Any spirits you have that can defend, summon them and we will mount a defence. None of them get off the path.”

  “None of them get off the path,” Wilsin echoed. It felt as good a sentiment as any. “We stand and fight here.”

  “Guys,” Aubemaya said. “I flunked spirit combat one-oh-one. I’m not sure what I can do here.” Yet still she’d clutched it to her chest, crystals already locked in. Wilsin smiled at her, went to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s not always about what you can’t do,” he said. “It’s sometimes about what you can do. If you take even one or two out, it’s one or two that can’t get to us.” He glanced back, saw Reeves crouched next to Suchiga, looking like he was about to fall. “Tell you what. Get behind us. Any get past me or Brendan, you take them. Don’t let them get to Reeves or Suchiga.”

  “I heard that!” Reeves shouted, his voice thick with fatigue. “Don’t condescend, David, it doesn’t suit you.”

  “Everyone dying because I didn’t have a plan doesn’t suit me either,” Wilsin shot back. “Have a bit of faith, Ben. I’m doing what I can.” He looked at Brendan. “Unless you have a…”

  Brendan shrugged. “You’ve done well this far, David. You didn’t get captured. You’ve been calling the shots. You didn’t abandon us. You didn’t get us all killed yet. Please, keep going. You’re on a roll so far.”

  “Sir, we need to put up an offensive,” he said. “You and me up front, spirits out. We need power and durability. I used up most of my dragon getting this far…”

  “And it was the right decision for you did get this far,” Brendan said. “Don’t have regret, David. That’s only for the dead.”

  “Indeed!”

  He was there, Wilsin should have guessed he hadn’t been killed yet.
The green king strode out of the crowd, imperious in his inscrutability, towering high above his subjects. Long legs moved him gracefully towards them, claws tap-tap-tapping against the stone.

  “You had your little temper tantrum, David Wilsin. You showed your hand, you proved that you’re an angry little man who just wants to fight. And look where it has gotten you.” He threw out an arm. “You’re surrounded. Your people are dying. You have no way out and you cannot win. This! This is why I was happy to become something other than human. You people will struggle and fight, rush your own destruction forward for something trifling as the urge to be defiant.”

  “Just because you turned your back on humanity doesn’t make you an expert,” Wilsin said. “You were smart once, you still don’t see it. You can’t quantify humanity, can’t stick everyone with the same labels. People will always surprise you. I mean, look at this whole damn mission. I never thought it’d come to this. But these people…” He pointed behind him towards the group. “They’ve fought and scrapped to survive. More than I’d expect from some of them.”

  “You’ll all die together,” the green king said. “That survival bond you talk about, that sense of fighting spirit is not going to save them.”

  “You don’t want to kill them,” Wilsin said. “You don’t want to kill them at all so stop pretending that you do. They’re just a bonus. What you really want is to kill me.”

  “Interesting,” the green king said. “What are you proposing?”

  “That you let everyone else get out of this jungle unhindered. You and me, we do what we’ve got to do and everyone’s a winner apart from the poor bastard who dies.”

  “You assume I wish to kill you, David Wilsin.”

  “I think you already took a shot at me and failed.” It was a lot more defiant than he felt. Belligerence had caused all this mess, he’d crushed the green king’s ego by not bowing to him and here they were.

  “And you assume that if I wished to take another, I would simply not learn from it? Aim for your head? Your throat? Can that vest take another attack? It’s a clever piece of Kjarn working but it is no longer as impervious as you might think.”

  Wilsin held out his arms, exposed his aching chest to the king, couldn’t have moved to defend himself even if wanted to. He could feel his heart pounding away in his chest, every beat sending rivulets of pain dancing through his veins. “I’m right here, if you want to take a shot.” His words carried a point within them, one directed straight towards his foe. “You can let them go though. Brendan. Tiana. Ben. Suniro. Just let them walk out of here and back to the boat unhindered. You can do that. It’s within your power.”

  “It is. Perhaps I shall and perhaps I shan’t. The pleasure of watching you squirm would whip a thousand donkeys. Your desolation would be delicious. Should I?”

  It might have been his imagination, but he was sure the curves at the corners of the had twitched upwards, hinting at the mirth of a grin.

  “Beg for their live and I will oblige. Beg and I will drag you down with me, watch as that which forged me crushes you beyond recognition. Beg, David Wilsin, beg and watch it all be lost to you.”

  Well, Wilsin thought. Fuck that!

  He’d not begged before. Ever. He wasn’t starting now. More than that, he didn’t trust the green king not to go back on what he’d offered, wait until they’d all split up and then cut them to pieces.

  “Well, it was a nice thought,” he said. “But I’m going to have to decline. Sorry, Jeremiah.”

  The green king reacted like he’d been slapped, turned to focus the full force of his glare on him. “You do know then.”

  “I didn’t try to kill you, Jeremiah,” Wilsin said. “I was not the only one down there. Revenge will not solve anything.”

  “My message still stands,” the green king said. “One of you must remain to deliver it.”

  “Jeremiah?” Brendan finally asked, the acting-director surprisingly silent throughout. He’d missed their previous exchange, perhaps he’d sought only to listen instead.

  “Jeremiah Blut,” Wilsin said. “I believe you owe Nick an apology, Brendan. Remember that big investigation you did? Harder to kill than we all thought.”

  “And so much more now.”

  “You already said,” Wilsin said. “Jerry, it’s not happening. Do what you will. You might have given up on humanity, but we’re not giving up this fight here. You’re going to kill us no matter what we do. I know what sort of man you were then, and I doubt you’ve changed too much.”

  The summoner trilled in his hand, not just his but Brendan’s in accompaniment, and Wilsin’s heart leaped as another sound filled his ears, something he’d almost resigned himself to defeat over. Out here in this little slice of the past, untouched by man or beast before today, the present had caught up. The faintest hint of engines in the distance broke through the afternoon sky and Wilsin had to fight to avoid punching the air.

  “Agent Wilsin, copy! Chief King, do you read me? If you hear my call, please respond.” The voice was garbled and masculine, hard to make out but definitely shouting for them. Wilsin had never been so jubilant to hear someone calling his name.

  “What did you say about no way out?” he asked, savage glee in his voice. “Our ride’s here.”

  He didn’t know which thought hit him first, the knowledge that it wasn’t going to be easy, fear that Blut would move to try and stop them, or that the distance that split them was still great. Blut roared his anger, the sound more animal than human, he guessed something about killing them and the rustlers were moving again.

  Brendan’s summoner erupted, twin spirits bursting out of their container crystals. Wilsin saw the humanoid figures taking shape, one formed of steel and one of rock. Brendan’s golems. They’d even up the battlefield a little. Golems were hard to fight under normal circumstances, Brendan had the talent for building them, even if it wasn’t one he employed as much in recent years. Their torsos were stumpy, misshapen but their limbs powerfully built. He wondered about the irony in the situation given the golems also lacked faces like their opponents. Steel and Stone, he was sure Brendan called them. Not very imaginative names he’d thought.

  The golems would give them cover, he dropped to his knees, brought the summoner to his mouth. “This is Wilsin, do you copy me? Over.”

  “Copy Agent Wilsin. This is Commander Little of the Nadine’s Grace, homing in on your position. What the hells is that rock? Over.”

  “Long story,” Wilsin said. “We are pinned down against opposition forces, requesting immediate evac and any sort of air support you can provide. Hurry! Over.”

  Above him, the golems had charged into the crowd of rustlers, powerful limbs tossing them around like ragdolls. Steel hit out with fists the size of plates, a dozen knife-shaped protrusions rising from their end. Stone did the same with arms that ended in smooth domes, large and heavy. Getting hit by one wouldn’t be too smart, those reanimated figures exceptionally strong. Everyone who fought a golem tended to remember it for all the wrong reasons. Where they flung out their limbs, rustlers went down. Not being alive in any sort of conventional sense, the golems would fight on and on until they were destroyed. Wilsin could testify that a well-built golem could take a tremendous amount of punishment and still wouldn’t fall. The rustlers were getting their blows in, yet they had little to no effect.

  “Negative on the air support, Agent Wilsin. Couldn’t get it past Vazaran customs. Blew out of Galina Island the first chance we got under civilian guise. We are on our way. ETA three minutes, over.”

  “Commander, we could be dead in three minutes!” Wilsin shouted. “Hurry the hells up!” His mood hadn’t improved, forgetting the protocol at the end of his bellow. He hoped it might convey his sense of urgency. “We have injured down here, over!”

  Commander Little didn’t reply, Wilsin fought the urge to kick something. He could see the speck in the distance was getting closer, incoming fast. He just hoped it was fast enough. He pushed
his own buttons, brought his own spirits into the fray. Chydarm, the tiverian mammoth hit the ground with a thud, not an ideal spirit in weather like this with all that fur but he could damn well cope for the three minutes. If one of them got lucky and killed him, he liked the idea that ten tons of mammoth would bear down on them as a final act of defiance. The other spirit, a Tarrusian bullhound named Zizou skittered across the stone, barked angrily at the rustlers. The hound was heavy, thick with muscle, ears pointing upwards like horns. In one hand, he gripped his Tebbit. In the other, he held Reeves’ kjarnblade.

  This was it. Their last stand.

  Guys! He chided his spirits, felt their attention turn to him in his mind. Don’t get fancy. Just kill. Any of them get past the golems, hit them hard and fast. Especially you, Chydarm. You’re the first line. Zizou, any stragglers get past, take them down. Limbs and spines. Get them!

  The violence had been instant, rustlers giving up trying to fight Steel and Stone, instead choosing to swarm past them. The golems might be brutally powerful, but they could never be called agile, for every two or three that was taken out by the fling of an arm, ten more got to Chydarm who had the same problem. Trunk and tusks swept out, smash and impale, more than once, Wilsin saw the trunk wrap around one wood-covered body, hurl it into the distance. Just too many of them. Ditto Zizou, the hound snarling amongst them but unlike the others, Zizou didn’t have size on his side. Like Scales before him, it was too easy for them to surround him. Brendan had his own blaster pistol out, safety off and aiming into the crowd, Wilsin paused him with a shout.

  “Aim low! Put them on the ground!”

  Their weapons fired in unison, blaster fire ripping through the air and dropping them one and two at a time. It wouldn’t be enough, Wilsin realised, firing again and again, the powerful backlash of the Tebbit reverberating through his arms. Too soon it clicked on dry, the weapon stuttering into silence. He allowed himself a glance to the sky, saw the oncoming ship increasing in size. The aeroship was incoming, an older model but no less rapid. He could see twin outlines on either side of it, something flying in formation with them.