by Sparks,Cat
“Who’s there?”
Star picked up the lantern and held it high, then gasped. Teddy’s father, Drover Jens, lay sprawled on the ground with dark liquid seeping out of him.
Star ran to his side and knelt but it was too late. Jens was not long dead, his flesh still warm, his eyes staring into nothingness.
Nearby sounds. Disgruntled camels. Men’s voices carrying above their heads.
“Run back to the fire,” Star instructed Anj. “Raise the alarm. Tell Lucius. Tell everybody.”
Anj nodded, eyes wide with fear. She hesitated.
“Go! I’ll tend to Jens.” Star said that knowing it was too late. Jens was already dead, and she should wait for the riders to come back with loaded rifles.
But she didn’t. Instead, she rested Jens’s head back gently on the sand, closed his eyes, then stopped still and listened, focusing on the moving mass of shapes out past the grazing strip, the stones, and the Sentinel’s protective range.
Camels barked and grumbled in agitation. Something had them spooked. Bright blue light, as illuminating as the lightning strikes, pulsed from the centre of the storm.
No time to worry about strange light. Not while thieves were stealing camels right in front of her. She picked up the lantern and ran out after them, not thinking about the danger, nor about poor Jens lying dead on the sand, and how she would have to break the news to Teddy.
“Who goes there? Stop!”
She kept on moving until she could see them clearly. Three on camelback. Camels paid for with spilled blood.
No need to see their faces. Three men, their bodies swathed in fancy embroidered sand cloaks and galabeyas.
She called out, “Kian.”
“That’s far enough,” he answered. “I’m armed and I will shoot you without hesitation.”
“Where do you think you’re going? There’s a storm out there. It isn’t safe!”
“The storm is your problem, not ours. Yours and those idiots loitering by the fire, wasting time with their pointless rituals and concerns.”
“Why are you in such a hurry to get to Heel? What difference will a couple of days make?”
“All the difference in the world if we don’t get there first,” said Tallis.
“Shut up Tal—we don’t have to answer her questions.”
“Get where first—what are you talking about?”
The wind was getting stronger, tugging at their clothes. The camels shifted restlessly, not accustomed to unfamiliar riders on their backs, nor the combination of shouting, blustery gusts, and lightning.
“Kristo will come after you,” Star shouted over the rising howl. “Blood will be avenged with blood.”
“Somehow I don’t think so.”
Star felt Kian’s gaze boring into her, even though she could barely make out the oval of his face, let alone his eyes.
A brilliant blast of lightning flared. For a moment, Star could see all three faces clearly and she wondered how she had ever thought them handsome. Hard and cold, all angles, no compassion.
“You didn’t have to kill Teddy’s father. Not for the sake of a few days travel time.”
Lightning struck the sand a few feet away. Kian didn’t even flinch. He smiled and drew a silver pistol from the folds of his cloak, raised it high, and aimed it at her head.
Star froze. She had only ever seen a pistol once—and that was on a dead man. She knew she ought to run, but couldn’t move. She couldn’t even blink. Just stood there waiting for a burst of pain.
Kian didn’t fire. All three of them suddenly stirred their beasts to action, turned them around and whipped them out into the crazy wind. Lightning continued to blast and flare, each burst illuminating smaller blue-tinged figures. Star ran after them. A pointless gesture, but she couldn’t help it, her feet were moving before her fear caught up.
The air was cold. Fine sand stung her cheeks. She stopped and stared as the camels rode out of view.
A man lay dead and three camels were stolen, but the murderers and thieves would not get far. Not while there was still breath in Benhadeer’s lungs. The camels were his and swift retribution would soon be his as well. Cold comfort, but it was better than nothing.
She turned and hurried back towards the safety of the Sentinel, rubbing her shoulders against the chill. The wind was getting stronger and sharper, blasting her body with handfuls of sand and stones. Blue lightning flared as the storm drew closer.
She started running, gripping the lantern tight. A wild gust tripped her up and sent her sprawling. The lantern smashed. The storm was closing in but how could that be? She had reached the edge of the Sentinel’s protection but felt no familiar tingling sensation.
The body of Teddy’s father lay where she had left it. The others had not come back to help. Nobody even knew the man was dead.
Her thoughts were filled with Teddy as she staggered to her feet, about how she was going to have to be the one to tell him.
A mournful cry—a woman’s voice—and then all hell broke loose. The storm hit the camp like a mighty fist slamming down from the sky. The air thickened with with sand and swirling debris. The body of Teddy’s father, snatched and flung into the air as though it’d been a child’s toy made of rag.
Star dropped into an instinctive crouch, khafiya tugged up high across her face. Wind-whipped sand particles scratched against her skin. Howling blended with terrified screams.
She crawled, groping until she reached one of the wagons, using it to pull herself to standing, clinging to its splintered side to stop herself from completely blowing away.
“Lucius! Nene! Anj!”
Each name dissolved as soon as she spoke it. She could see nothing, hear nothing but the vicious, horrible howling.
The wagon she clung to shuddered and rattled, offering scant protection. She would have to move towards the rest of them, berthed in an arc beneath the apparently useless Sentinel.
She dropped to all fours and crawled, aware of airborne objects whizzing over her head. The storm had crossed the Verge. Such a thing was not supposed to happen.
Sharp, relentless blasts of sand stang her eyes and face. Her worn-thin khafiya was no protection whatsoever.
Somebody slammed into her, cursed, and kept on going. Camels brayed in distress; harrowing, anguished sounds. The Van hands would be fighting to protect the animals. Everyone else would have to fend for themselves.
From what little she could see, their camp had been obliterated. Wagons were smashed and scattered, and bodies wriggled on the sand like fish left high and dry by a receding tide, a tide nobody had been expecting.
Nothing remained of the communal fire. Screams sounded, only to be snatched away and silenced. Blinded and without bearings, Star staggered forwards with arms outstretched, hoping she was heading towards the light and not away from it. Something sailed past her head, dangerously close. She stopped and shielded her face with her arms, straining to listen, barely able to hear herself think.
She slammed up violently against something hard. Not the Vulture. Something else. Another wagon, this one on the move. She felt her way along it to the end of it. People were pushing. She joined in, shoving her shoulder hard against the wood until a violent gust of wind lifted and flung her backwards. It took her three attempts to fight her way back to standing. By then, even the cries and screams had faded. All she could hear and see and taste was sand.
And then, of all blessings, she ran headlong into Lucius. He shouted at her, words she couldn’t hear, but she gripped on tightly to his arm and hung on for dear life.
Another blast slammed both of them against one of the remaining upright wagons. Not as hard as it might have. They were lucky.
Lucius—what she could see of his face—looked truly fri
ghtened. Something Star had never seen before.
“The Sentinel,” she shouted. “The door is open. Everybody has to get inside.”
She saw him mouth the word “forbidden,” a useless, stupid word that made her angry. What did it matter what was forbidden and what was not? Without shelter, they were going to die.
He must have come to the same conclusion, because he heaved his shoulder under hers and dragged her to her feet. She stumbled but kept up the pace, his stocky form flimsy and insubstantial against the wind.
She thought she could hear the low rumble of the Van’s back up batteries powering, but the sound choked up and ceased abruptly.
Her eyes were completely filled with grit. She couldn’t see so she clamped them tightly shut. Tears welled, eyes fighting to expel the sand. When eventually she opened them, all she could see were flares of lightning, eerie blue and pulsing, like no storm she had ever seen before.
Star and Lucius stumbled towards the Sentinel, dragging each other along. Through gritty tears they stumbled headlong into a group of walkers clustered together, their faces wrapped in rags. Arms groping. Heading in the same direction.
“Keep moving,” bellowed Lucius as the wind swelled up and the sand tore at their clothes.
Then, suddenly, the worst of it was over. The storm thinned enough that they were breathing air again. Star realised she was clinging to one of the dancers, her bright sari obscured beneath a stained and tattered sand cloak.
The Sentinel tower loomed above them, a dark shadowy outline. Many had gathered around its base, some flattened against its sheer sides, others crouched in an attempt to avoid the worst of the wind.
There was a droning sound, like insects. But it wasn’t swarming bugs; it was prayer. Hands and voices raised in terror. A mix of languages all torn and tumbled, mangled by the howling of the wind.
They found the door, still jimmied half open, just as Anj and the others had left it.
“Put your backs into it, people! Push!” The hideous sound of grating metal competed with the wind. “Again,” shouted Benhadeer as he shoved his bulk against the door until it opened fully.
Desperate people pushed their way inside. Others milled about the entranceway uncertainly, mumbling prayers or making ward signs with their hands.
“Get inside,” Star told any who would listen, repeating the words over and over while Nene shoved them, one by one, through the hatch. Relief flooded through Star as soon as saw her sister was safe. Only when the last of them had crossed the threshold did Nene follow.
Inside was dark and cold and musty. Star’s eyes adjusted, as one of Benhadeer’s men made a shushing sound and the last of the prayers and whimperers fell silent.
Even through a wailing sandstorm, Benhadeer stood out from the crowd, a good head taller than most with broad shoulders to match. The crowd parted as he pushed his way toward the staircase and the circle of muddy light that bled down from above.
Kristo followed. The men climbed several steps and paused. “Nene,” said Benhadeer, his voice elevated from its usual deep timbre.
Nene moved to join him. Star followed, needing to be by her sister’s side through whatever happened next.
Each footstep on the metal staircase gnawed at her resolve. She, Anj, and the others should not have been in here earlier. Were they somehow to blame for all of this? She could sense the rest of them below holding their collective breath, waiting to see what would happen next. She scanned the crowd but she could not see Anj or Teddy, Kaja or Griff or even Remy.
She made sure she looked appropriately impressed when faced with the massive window. The Vulture held up, steady as always amidst a wash of swirling, debris-laden sand.
The vicious storm was beautiful, blazing with the ferocity of fire. Beautiful but deadly. Anyone left out on the sand would be wrenched limb from limb. Perhaps Kian and his brethren had got what they deserved after all.
In the storm, random pulses, lights and flares bloomed like fireworks, and it seemed at that moment like a living creature possessed of brute intelligence. Some people believed it true—that the Verge storms were alive. It was said some even worshipped them as gods. At that moment Star completely comprehended why.
Nobody said anything. Star stuck close by Nene’s side. The worst of it was over now, the boiling turbulence fading into memory.
Time passed, too slow and strange to keep proper track of it. Might have been an hour or three. Impossible to tell. Eventually it began to worry her, like there was some big heavy secret that everyone except Star understood. Her patience waned—she longed to ask the question but Nene sensed it ahead of her. She placed her hand upon her sister’s arm, a warning to keep silent. Later, was what the gesture meant—we’ll find out later, when we are free of this dark and cursed place.
= Seventeen =
The last thing Quarrel had anticipated was company as he stood in semi darkness, jacked into the Sentinel’s console, sucking the dregs of power from its back ups. Back arched in ecstatic rictus, frozen in the moment, savouring the warm infusion, flecks of spittle adhering to his chin as he stared out through the window at the storm clouds chewing the horizon. Staring, wide-eyed, as time passed in random fits and surges.
Voices intruded on his privacy. Multiple boot treads on metal rungs.
Quarrel’s powers of self preservation kicked in strong. He managed to drag himself away, to crouch and flatten against the farthest wall, out of the light and out of the way as the control room filled with curious, yabbering young.
He was too stoned to estimate their ages—anyone under forty was a child to a Templar warrior.
The children—young ones—whatever they were, appraised the console that ran three-quarters the circumference of the room. They prodded and poked at non functioning buttons, dials, pads, and screens, seemingly fascinated by the on-off winking light, sole witnesses to Quarrel’s heinous crime. He had drunk his fill and left the Sentinel a broken useless thing. He wasn’t sorry. He’d done what he had to do.
One of the young ones was not like all the others. She looked ordinary enough, a girl in trousers and a dirty loose weave shirt. Not armed, save for short blades sheathed inside her boots and a slice of metal embedded in her arm.
Something pinged when he saw that metal. Not his mesh this time, something deeper. Something important, only half remembered. It took him a moment to dredge up the data, make comparisons, make sense of what he was seeing.
Curious.
He hadn’t thought that any of her issue had been left alive. Not since the Lotus Wars and those hunter-seeker bunker busters had gone burrowing after all the secret caches.
Huh.
Not his problem. Quarrel had problems of his own aplenty, starting with what would happen now that Nisn had tracked him down, registered his deviation from the mission. Would they initiate the explosive charges wired into his frame? Blow him up rather than take a chance with him rogue?
Not likely. Nisn needed him. It wasn’t like they had a lot of options.
He stood there, silent in the shadows, watching as another of the young ones got busy attempting to jimmy equipment from the console’s hard baked surface with a blade. They bantered back and forth amongst each other, an argument, then suddenly abandoned everything in terrific haste. More boot treads on the curling metal staircase as they left. Something on the ground outside had hijacked their attention.
Quarrel remained still and silent even after they’d gone. Not one of them had noticed him—not even the girl with a mesh bar in her arm. His veins pumped hot with delicious buzz. Goodbye to Nisn and its crazy priests. Quarrel was setting out to see the world.
He was still standing there in half-stoned reverie when a sight beyond the window stopped his breath.
The storm he had formally glimpsed scouring the horizo
n had changed trajectory. It was now heading directly for the Sentinel and the ruins of Vulture Base. He’d been stationed there once before, back when it was made of bricks and mortar. There’d been a lake and better rations than he was used to, which was probably why it had imprinted in his mind.
He peeled himself from the security of the cold steel wall, and moved as close to the window as he could. The plexiglass was one way; nobody on the ground below could see him.
The storm looked like some kind of polyp. He’d not encountered one for centuries and had forgotten their great beauty. Deadly manufactured things trailing stingers through the dirt. A thunderhead of translucent, electric blue.
The barometric pressure plunged, sending shivers down his spine. Quarrel stood dead still and closed his eyes. Remembering, but only for a moment. This one was small. He’d once seen a big one up close, in action, sweeping across the open plains, striking and devouring a whole platoon before his eyes. His point fighters had sheltered in caves, helpless to do anything but watch.
There had not been much worth salvaging when the thing had done its work. No bones to bury, just a slurry melt of hair and skin and cloth. Melted M40s and 107s embedded with scattered human teeth.
Quarrel had memories of battleground scavengers scuttling from burn to burn. Collecting great sacks of gold-embedded human ivory and selling it by weight in the larger towns.
This storm was small, and beautiful by comparison, but it still sickened him to his core. Such things should never have been unleashed and let run free.
The storm was bearing down on the encampment, driven by integrated heuristic programs—designed to give chase if their target tried to get away. He was not the target, or else he’d have been dead already—perhaps this storm was as much a rogue as he was. Time for him to take his leave. The Sentinel was useless now. Best to get as far away as possible.
He clattered down the spiral staircase, pushed out through the metal hatch into air laced with stinging sand and barking dogs. His coat was too heavy, weighted down with gold. People were running in all directions, desperate to tie their possessions down and protect their terrified animals.