by Sparks,Cat
Iago shouted something, but his words were snatched by the wind. Grieve placed his hand upon her shoulder. No need, she’d already seen them. Tankers were rumbling across the open sand, their massive tires stirring up great clouds of dust. The lizard slowed, and Iago urged her onwards. The things were moving in a pack, a massive pod of rumbling mecha, like birds flying in formation, or a pack of wild dogs running down an easy kill.
One of the tankers broke off from the pod, fell behind, then curved in a new direction, directly towards them. Iago shouted, words repeated over and over. Iolani kept on running. Star gripped the saddle with both hands as the tanker hurtled forward at great speed. Grieve wrapped both arms around her waist, bracing for impact—there wasn’t time to think. But then, at the last moment, the tanker swerved, missing them by several lengths. The thing was playing with them. Shaking the ground and shattering their nerves, kicking up sand. But the lizard did not falter. She ducked and swerved while the three of them clung on tight; Star and Grieve to each other, Iago to Iolani’s hardy ears.
Dark shapes appeared on the sand ahead of them, directly below the pulsing sky scab. Rocks or ruins, it didn’t matter which. Star shouted and pointed. Grieve knew what she meant. So did Iago. So did Iolani. The lizard swerved onto a new trajectory.
Star glanced back over her shoulder, balancing in the saddle, leaning her weight on Grieve as she tried for glimpses of the rogue tanker, to see if it was coming at them again, or if there were others. The tanker had not re-joined the pod. It seemed to be circling them at a distance. She almost lost her grip—then Grieve grabbed her waist and yanked her back into the saddle.
“Faster!” he yelled.
The lizard couldn’t run any faster.
Star braced herself for another blast of sand, for Iolani to change direction again, for that tanker to have another go.
Tankersong was vibrating all around, high pitched and stomach-churning. She’d been prepared for it, but it still felt like a sharp kick in the guts. It was inside her head as well as in the air, drowning out the whispering of the Blue.
If they could only reach the mess of rocks and ruins that lay ahead.
= Sixty-three =
The tactical plastic goggles strapped to Marianthe’s face were so worn and scratched she could barely see a thing. But they kept the wind-whipped sand out of her eyes. Part of her expected to find that Templar standing amidst the Crysse grave markers, a solitary figure, head bowed, communing with the fallen, his own brothers and sisters. But Crysse was as still and empty as she had left it, no sign that he or anyone else had been there.
The Templar: a single image filled her mind: his face, so old and worn and lined and etched with pain and suffering. The years had not been kind to him. They hadn’t been kind to anybody. But was it really him writhing on the ground of Sanctum? His face had been contorted with private agonies, like something was trying to seize hold of his brain. Something he was fighting to be free of. Perhaps she’d been mistaken? It was easy to make mistakes in such a sad and broken world. Easy to see what you thought you wanted to see.
If it had been him, he had not recognised her, or perhaps not even noticed her standing beside him, face awash with images of green. All he had cared for was that girl, crawling towards her on his hands and knees, towards that child that had invaded Marianthe’s private space. Blundered in like a rat through the wiring, interrupting the messages of peace and green that flowed like river running over rocks.
Ungrateful girl.
As if that had not been insult enough, she’d gone and smashed her way out of the holding cell. The girl was gone, and good luck to her. Good luck to all of them, especially the lizard drover; she was really going to miss that boy. The Red would squeeze the moisture from their skin. They’d be dead within a day or two at best.
Marianthe hobbled past the shock-frozen expanse of meshed and melted exoskeletons. Sand grains scratched against her face. The heat was impassive, yet there was something else out there besides the sun and sand. Something spitting blasts of cool, crisp air in random bursts. It was not the first time she’d tasted such a chill. Something out there. Something. But nothing good, not as she had hoped and dreamt and prayed for. It had taken him to show her that.
Little Ditto, favourite of her drones, spun in giddy circles around her head. She swatted at it, annoyed. The drone meant well—they all did—but they didn’t understand what was going on. How could they?
She tripped and cursed. Walking was becoming more difficult all the time, both through sand and over stony flats. Everything ached relentlessly, from her joints to her bones to her self-inflicted scars. Some of those wounds had never properly healed. She knew she didn’t have much longer, a couple of years at best. A couple of years of back and forth, laying wreaths and clearing sand off hand-etched tombstones, mumbling prayers to deities that had died alongside the cultures responsible for their fabrication.
She waited, staring at the open sand, waiting for the gnarled old tanker to complete its circuit. She slipped the strap of the satchel over her head and took out the precious item she’d brought with her. Just in case she needed it. Just in case.
Her crown of thorns. She placed it gingerly on her head. “I am the queen of the dead,” she said, out loud to the sun and sand and ruin. Wind howled through gaps in the exoskeleton carapaces. Sand skinks ran for cover.
Queen of the dead, words evaporating in the ever-present heat.
The tanker approached in a fug of dust, slowing to let Marianthe clamber up an exposed segment of its battle-scarred modular casing to a high position where sand barnacles had failed to take a hold. With clunks and pneumatic wheezes, it resumed its slow and lumbering orbit with propulsion that was jagged and uneven. It bumped and growled and bled great plumes of toxic smelling smoke. It had stopped—so trusting—to let her back on board and now she hung on with both hands, her walking stave wedged in between two bulbous barnacle clusters. She was terrified of losing it—without that stave she could barely walk.
After Crysse would come the tricky part—convincing the rattling old bucket of bolts and steel to leave the land it knew so well to transport her across the open Red, right into the heart of the boiling storm clouds clenched like a giant fist above the horizon.
Carefully, she manoeuvred herself into position, a place from which she could reach the tanker’s primary neural interface. She had to chip the barnacles away with a bowie knife—original issue; she’d hung onto it all these years, knowing it would come in handy some day.
The tanker didn’t put up much of a fight. It tolerated her gnarly fingers thrust inside its brain, changed its song and changed direction, the crown of thorns now telling it where to go.
“Goodbye, Crysse,” whispered Marianthe, knowing that, whatever happened, she would never see that place again.
They travelled onwards through the desolate landscape. Two of her drones affixed themselves to the tanker’s encrusted sides—the multi-limbed repair units scuttling across the tanker’s back like parasites knew to keep their distance. The third drone flew high above her head, scouting for danger even though she couldn’t hear whatever it was trying to tell her. Its data streams were useless without her Sanctum console, yet the little thing kept doing what it had been designed to do, and would keep on doing it until the bitter end.
Eventually they spotted a figure moving in the far-off distance, a darkened silhouette against the sand. But the tanker acted as if it might ignore the figure completely and thunder right on past. Marianthe swore—she had no idea how to make it stop. No time to learn, only time for rough experiments; pulling at this and stabbing at that. The tanker howled in drawn-out agony. It didn’t stop, but instead slammed its breaks and swerved, sand spraying into the air, freaking the drones out, and freaking Marianthe too.
She’d have to jump for it, no question, and a fall lik
e that would likely cripple her further, or kill her.
At the moment before the tanker regained its equilibrium and righted its course, the last possible moment, she grabbed her stave with one bony hand, then removed the crown of thorns with the other, fumbling to stow it in her satchel. She took a deep breath, then flung herself as far as she could, dropping the hardware, tucking into a commando roll straight into the base of a gentle dune, hoping the sand was as soft as it looked.
She rolled onto her left shoulder, landing painfully on her hip, and cried out as the breath was knocked from her lungs. She fell sprawling and tumbling onto her back, gazing upwards into sickly-coloured sky. Lying there, motionless, trying to remember how to breathe, scared to move in case something was broken.
Her faithful drones had disengaged from the lumbering mecha’s bulk. They hovered above her head uncertainly, which would give away her position to any predators that might be in the vicinity. To him as well, the walking man, but she hadn’t the energy to shout or shoo them off or do anything other than close her eyes and wait until the pain in her hip subsided.
It took awhile. Took time to get the stave into position, using it to lever herself to standing. Inch by painful inch, but she made it. Nothing was broken, just jarred and bruised and maybe cracked, but she could walk and she could see and the sun had not defeated her yet and that was all that mattered in the end.
Little Ditto dive-bombed and performed three excited circumnavigations. That drone had never learnt to curb its enthusiasm like the others. More dog than drone, she realised; it was funny how she’d never noticed that before.
“Make yourself useful and go scout,” she snapped. The drone obeyed and the others followed. She hobbled after them, as much of her weight against the stave as it would take, but she was slowed by sand, and dismayed by the truth fast becoming apparent: maybe she hadn’t done much worse than crack a rib, but walking brought more pain than ever and she would not be able to get very far. The sand was thick and she was lame. Alone in the middle of nowhere. Low dune crests blocked any useful view—and there was not any sign of him. Nor of the tanker either—it was gone.
Expended adrenalin doused her in vivid flashback: Cold white faces shivering in the ruins, illuminated in flames and flashes. Shells ripping air, red sky streaked with blasted cinder brick and fire. Burning bunkers glowing with soft light. They covered the faces of their dead. All they could do for them. Screaming guns masked the gasping of the wounded.
“Enough!”
She shook the vivid memories from her head, then poked around in the sand until she found her satchel and its precious cargo, the crown of thorns, hopefully not too damaged from her landing. And when she next looked up, there he was, walking out of the desert right towards her.
“Stop!”
She stabbed her stave in the sand down hard, and raised her hand, palm facing outwards.
He did not stop. The Templar warrior pressed on past, marching like a machine, which he was, of course, in part. Embedded mecha made him impervious to pain and fatigue and other flaws, but also impervious to compassion and curiosity and a host of other elements of civilised discourse.
“Stop!”
Marianthe’s three drones ganged up on him, dive bombing and swooping close to his face, then down between his moving feet, near enough to slow him down on pain of tripping. He took a swing at one of them with a balled, meaty fist, but Flaxy was too quick and swift. He missed.
“Benjamin, do you not know your Manthy? How could you ever forget?” She stepped closer, her movements sharp and jerking, every step shooting pain through her arms and legs. “You gave me that name, do you not remember? My name made short and sweet. I buried you, or at least I thought I did. Whatever happened? What has become of you?”
There was a sharp movement. A flash of reflected light. Marianthe recoiled as the Templar gripped a blade in his hand. Lightning reflexes, despite being half dead and crazy. She braced herself, took her weight off the stave in case she had to wield it as a weapon, a pointless action, she was not strong enough, but neither would she let her dear old flame take her down without a fight.
Quarrel moved closer, arm raised, face reddened from sunburn cut with stubble, tears streaming down his face.
Tears?
“Help me,” he croaked.
He raised the blade and held it poised above his own arm. His mesh was exposed, but his knife hand still, unmoving. He appeared to be trying to stab himself but some unseen force would not permit it.
“Help me, Manthy, help me!”
“Oh Benjamin, what have they done to you?” She hobbled closer, not certain if he’d lash out and try to cut her. She didn’t care—let the mecha run its course. She’d survive whatever came to pass. She always did. That was the strength, the power those Lotus Wars had bestowed upon her. Upon them both.
His face reddened and his eyes bulged. His knife hand tremored with stifled effort. Sweat poured off his sunburned skin. She let her stave fall gently to the sand, moving swift and loving as a breeze, making no sudden movements, touching his hand, uncurling his swollen fingers, one by one. Hard as wood, grazed as stone. With a deft twist she prised the knife free of his trembling grasp, clutching it tightly in her own right hand. “Are you sure about this, my darling?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. She knew. He was sure. Tremors running through his muscles, fighting hard to keep the beast at bay.
She took the knife and a deep breath, then stabbed the blade into his mesh, gouging and twisting with surgical precision, just like she’d done once before, on her own implants. Pulling it out and wiping it on her sleave. She’d expected a scream but in its place, he let go a stream of gibberish:
“Hundred left, hundred short, snipers are shooting too high . . . Watch out, tank battalion creeping forward over the horizon: sneak, stalk, flank, lost the whole damn lot of em in twenty minutes last time . . . Stay within division zone! Johnny’s tanks are sheltered snug behind twenty feet of concrete. Zone of the 42d infantry division on our right. Speed and smarts, shake em up with heavy artillery . . .”
There was barely any blood to speak of.
She tucked the knife into her belt and bent down to fetch her stave. Then she called out to her drones to scout ahead, to make sure they were walking in the right direction. She hooked her free arm though his own. He kept on reliving a battle only he could see, but he didn’t flinch at her assistance, and allowed her to nudge him forward. After a while, Benjamin Quarrel picked up the gist of walking in a straight line.
“I will walk with you,” Marianthe said as they went. “I will walk with you to the end of the earth and beyond.”
= Sixty-four =
Iolani ran, thick legs thundering like storm clouds. Ahead, the ruins beckoned, stark against the lurid skyline. Remains of an ancient, hard-floored sanctuary where tankers could not reach them—or so they hoped. They’d be safe if the lizard could make it. Rest up until the tanker pod was out of sight.
Star twisted in the saddle, surprised to see Grieve’s face grinning sheepishly mere inches from her own.
“What happened to that rogue tanker?” she said.
“Guess it fell back,” he shrugged.
“Fell back? Why would it do that? We were sitting pretty. Easy targets.”
They checked the sands behind them. No sign. The rest of the pod had changed direction, and were no more dangerous now than a cloud of dust.
“I don’t like it. Something’s wrong.”
“Sometimes you get lucky and catch a break.”
She twisted further, scanning the sands in all directions, shielding her eyes from the sun. The resonance of tankersong still reverberated through her bones, but the one that had come after them was gone. She twisted to look the other way. “I’d feel better if we could see it. At
least we’d know where we stood.”
She chewed her lip. “Reckon it’s frightened of the lizard?”
“Maybe. Star, about what I was saying before. About the sea. Have you considered—”
“Later—we’re not out of danger yet.” The thing in her mind had fallen silent but she felt the presence of unseen creatures lurking all around them—and it made her nervous.
“Head for those ruins,” she shouted at Iago. No need—Iago and Iolani knew what they were doing and where they were going. They didn’t need her telling them anything. But her anxiety was on the rise. Grieve was right—what would happen when they reached the excavation site? Locating the Lotus Blue was just the start. Ancient mecha that could scab and taint the sky was more than a match for a few runaways on a lizard—even if the code Quarrel had loaded into her mesh was sound. Even if she could figure out how to deliver it. Even if . . .
“Star . . .”
She turned her head. “The tanker—is it back?” In a panic, she stood up again.
Grieve jerked her back down sharply. “No no, it’s alright, there’s nothing to see back there.”
She stared at him blankly. “Then what do you want?”
“Promise me you’ll come with us. Abandon this pointless quest.”
“I can’t promise and you shouldn’t ask that of me.”
He stared at her red-faced, then looked away, out across the sand, half-glimpsing tankers where there were none to see.
Gently, she elbowed him in the ribs. “Sun’s getting to you—you have to focus. If we don’t make it to those ruins—”
“Calm down, okay—we’ll make it. Iago knows what he’s doing.”
She scanned every wind-blown tuft of grass for evidence of recent tankertread. Iago shouted a warning just in time as Iolani swerved to avoid a vicious row of jutting spikes. It was the ivory ribcage of some long-dead beast—at least three times the lizard’s size, all but invisible against the sub-bleached sand.