“A little more than a month in surface time.”
Good, I think. There is nothing worse than going deep and returning only to find far more time than expected had passed. I lost twenty years surface time that way. Even better, this time my enemy went deep with me. Nephil lost the month, too. Though I’m sure his army continued with their preparations.
“How long before they attack?” I ask him. “Best guess.”
He shrugs. “Could be today. Could be tomorrow. But I suspect we have several days still. The Nephilim warriors can travel great distances quickly, but they will strike from the land as well. Traveling the distance will take time and we have sentries keeping watch through the jungle at fifty-mile intervals. We’ll see them coming.”
“Were these defenses your ideas?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “They still fear me.”
“Then how do you—” I was going to ask him how he knew all this, but then I remember Xin’s special gift. He can be a fly on the wall from miles away. I tap my head.
He nods and says, “Your friend, Merrill Clark, seems to have sway with the leader of your nation.”
“The President?” I ask.
“Yes. Though Clark has never met the man, your President was fond of his daughter, Mira. Also, a soldier that served with Clark during their time here, a Marine named Cruz has supported Clark’s claim to be an expert on the Nephilim, how they will attack and what they want. To a large extent, he is right, but he knows nothing of you or Nephil’s desire to capture you.”
Knows nothing of me? I wonder, and decide he’s talking about my larger role in all of this. How could he know? Then I remember Aimee. She knows everything. Wouldn’t she have told him?
“A man called Brigadier General Kent Holloway is in charge of the base and its defenses, but he also trusts Clark’s opinions on the Nephilim, because they share the same beliefs. You will have to gain their trust to—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Kat says. I hadn’t realized she’d been listening. “Clark, Cruz and the President will all listen to me.”
I’m about to add that Merrill will trust me, and that Aimee will back me up, but Xin pulls back on the reins, slowing his cresty, which seems to put the brakes on the whole pack, even those ahead of us. “The exit is just ahead.”
I lean around the side of Grumpy’s head and peer up the tunnel. A speck of light in the distance reveals the exit. I breathe a sigh of relief. Almost there. When we started our descent into the depths of Antarktos, I wasn’t sure we’d see the sun again. But we’re close now and despite the darkness to come, the thought of walking in the light of day again brings a smile to my face.
The dinosaurs part, making a path for us.
“What are they doing?” I ask.
“The soldiers and hunters are aware of me, my allegiance and my control over the dinosaurs, but they do not trust us. If the dinosaurs were to exit first, the sentries posted at the exit might take action.”
“They would attack the cresties?” I ask in surprise.
“I believe they would call for help,” he says. “I do not have a firm grasp on what these things are, but I have heard terms like ‘surgical strike,’ and, ‘lase the target.’”
“That,” Kat says. “Would not be good.”
A laugh from behind turns me around. Kainda, Em and Luca are catching up, moving through the open path in the middle of the pack.
“What’s so funny?” I ask Luca, the source of the laughter.
“I like it when Xin makes them do things like this,” Luca says, motioning to the dinosaurs.
For some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that Xin was controlling all these cresties. The concept of controlling so many minds at once seems positively daunting, even to someone who can control the entire continent’s elements. “You’re doing this?” I ask.
“They have simple minds,” he says. “And they are willing participants. I simply send out the command and they obey. But that is rarely required. They follow Grumpy’s lead and he often obeys without the use of my—” he taps his head, mimicking my previous gesture. “They are good soldiers.”
“Good dancers, too,” Luca says with a laugh.
“You didn’t?” I say, smiling wide.
“The boy missed his family,” Xin says with a shrug. “I did what I could.”
Shaking my head at the mental image of Grumpy doing a jig, I thump his sides with my heels and move forward, if only to spare my prehistoric steed from further embarrassment. “Let’s go.”
“I think I would like to see the dancing dinosaur,” Kainda says with a trace of humor.
“I’d like to see you dance,” Luca says to her, which gets a laugh out of Em.
“That might be even stranger than a dancing cresty,” Em says.
The good humor lasts all the way up the tunnel as the group discusses who would make the worst dancer. In the end, the winner is me, on account of my lack of rhythm and clumsiness when embarrassed. I try to defend myself, but Luca knows these things better than the others do, because he’s the same exact way. “But I’m a kid,” he says, “So it’s okay if I look silly.”
We slow at the exit and our humorous exchange fades.
“Are the men outside hunters or outsider military?” I ask.
“Most of the sentries are what outsiders call Army Rangers,” Xin says, “but the entrances to the underworld are watched by hunters, who are more familiar with what lurks below. They have been trained to use modern communication devices, though, and could call in an attack if they feel we are a threat.”
“They wouldn’t attack us themselves?” I ask.
“The old ways are changing,” Xin says. “Freedom makes men less willing to throw their lives away.”
I take the lead and motion for the others to hang back a bit. I squint in the bright light of a noonday sun, shading my eyes with my arm. Grumpy steps into the light cautiously, perhaps because he senses danger, but more likely, because his eyes are adjusting to the light, too, and his stubby forearms are incapable of shading his eyes.
I don’t see anyone, but there are a thousand hiding places in the thick jungle surrounding the small clearing at the cave’s exit. I’m no doubt being watched, if not targeted. “Do not be afraid,” I say, finding it strange that I’m using the same words of greeting as the Edinnu Kerubim.
No response. Not a greeting or a thrown weapon. Of course, it would take a minute for a missile to get here. I decide to put them at ease as quickly as possible to avoid any confusion. “I am Solomon Ull Vincent,” I announce. “Your...leader.” Still feels funny saying that, but that’s the way it is for all of us, like it or not. “Show yours—”
I turn around and find one man and one woman standing above the cave entrance. They are dressed in brown leathers and coated in mud, impossible to see in the shadows, but easy to spot in the glaring bright sun. Both of them bow.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, feeling instantly uncomfortable. “Really. You can stand up.”
When they stand, I realize they’re just obeying, not relaxing. Ugh. “What are your names?”
“Mellitt,” says the man. He’s tall, bearded and carries a long spear. His blood red hair is mostly covered by mud, but I can see it clearly enough. What I can’t see, is any streak of reclaimed innocence. It could be there, but the mud obscures it as well, which might be the point. Not all hunters are with us. Which also means that this could be a trap.
“Turner,” says the woman. She is lanky and slender like a snake. The perfect body for the underworld. Her skin is pale, which hints that she’s only recently come to live in the sun. The sunglasses covering her eyes confirm it.
Do you know them? I think to Xin.
They are with us, he replies.
“There are five more with me,” I tell them. “Xin, Kainda, Em, Luca and Kat, one of the outsiders.” I pat Grumpy’s head, which makes the woman fidget uncomfortably. “And about three hundred more of these guys. They are frie
nds. All of them. You’ll let them pass.”
Both nod, bow again, and slip back into the jungle shadows above the cave.
The others exit the cave and Xin takes the lead.
“You handled that well, kid,” Kat says. “Authority suits you.”
I laugh at this, but my humor is short lived when Xin says, “Follow me closely. Do not stray far from my path. The jungle is full of traps.”
“Traps?” I say.
“For the Nephilim,” Xin explains. “They were Clark’s idea.”
“Traps won’t kill the Nephilim,” Kainda points out.
“No,” Xin says, “But they might slow their progress long enough for our forces to get in place.”
With no more disagreement from Kainda, Xin leads the way. We follow him single file through the jungle, though we really don’t have to try. The dinosaurs maintain the formation on their own, forming a living train of green and red striped carnivores just over a mile long.
We journey in silence for nearly thirty minutes before starting up an incline that takes us high above the jungle below. Looking back, through the gaps in the canopy, I catch glimpses of distant jungle. There’s a river and beyond that, a streak of gray.
The wall, I think. It’s the wall upon which I first discovered that Merrill had returned to Antarktos, and the wall that took me inland to where I found Em, Kainda and Luca. The river running in the same direction must be the one that leads to the lake, the same river on which Merrill, Aimee and eventually Mira, on the back of Gloop the Weddell seal, made their escape to the coast. We’re not far from Clark Station 2. That little bit of knowledge brings me some peace. In many ways, this is my home—where I was born, where I last saw my parents, where I lived with Em and Luca, and trained with Tobias. It looks far different now, of course, but it’s still familiar.
The trees thin and then clear as we reach the hill’s crest, though it might actually be a small mountain rather than a hill. Xin leads me toward a cliff’s edge.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “The others will stay back.”
“But why?”
“I want you to see,” he says.
“See what?” I ask, but then the trees part and the view is exposed. I can see all the way down the mountain, as the jungle stretches toward the coast. It all looks normal until about a mile inland where the tree line abruptly ends at a field of stumps. The jungle has been cut away.
Half the distance to the coast is the forward operating base. It is far more massive than I was expecting. Sandbag walls, razor wire and armed guards fringe the whole compound. Hundreds of guards, both modern military and hunter alike. There are artillery cannons, large jeeps, helicopters and even a handful of giant looking tanks.
So much for the Antarctic Treaty, I think. Part of the treaty’s mandate was that no country would deploy military on Antarctic soil. Not that I’m complaining. The military hardware is a welcome sight, for now at least.
There are several buildings, a sea of tents and a level of activity that reminds me of ants at work, which is probably how the Nephilim will see it too. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. The memory of the Old Testament verse comes and goes quickly, not because it’s a poignant reminder of what we will face, but because I see what lies beyond the FOB, in the ocean.
An aircraft carrier and many more dangerous-looking naval ships fill the ocean. Jets. Missiles. Heavy guns. And an army of men and dinosaurs. It’s a gathering of forces unlike any ever seen before...except maybe for the Nephilim army that will eventually descend on this place like a plague of impervious, oversized locusts.
All of this is yours to command, Xin thinks to me, but only if you take it.
Take it?
Men do not give up control of such power willingly. Kat’s opinion of you alone will not be enough. Trust between men forms like fossils found in the earth—very slowly. Time is short, so trust in you must be...forced. He looks at me, his yellow eyes serious. “I do not mean for you to attack them,” he says aloud. “But you will need to impress upon them your right to lead. There can be no doubt. If you fail to do this, all else is lost.”
30
Approaching the FOB gates feels similar to when I stood before the gates of Tartarus for the first time. The sight of soldiers and hunters, all training their untrusting eyes—and weapons—on our prehistoric caravan is unnerving. I am powerful. I know this. But could I stop every single bullet if these men decided I was an enemy? Could I protect the people with me? The shofar wouldn’t help in that situation. So I decide to do everything in my power to avoid it.
I pull back on the reins, bringing Grumpy to a stop, two hundred feet from the still closed gates. The rest of the dinosaurs follow suit. Xin looks a little surprised, but then nods at me.
The beasts, at least, will follow you, he thinks to me.
I climb down and motion for the others to follow.
I should wait here, Xin thinks.
I will probably need your help, I reply.
They fear me.
They need to learn not to, I think. You are my brother and they will learn to accept you, just as they will learn to follow me.
Very well, Xin thinks in reply. But you may find yourself safeguarding me rather than the other way around.
It would be a nice change, I think. Let’s go.
The dinosaurs part for us and we continue along the path to the gate on foot. When the dinosaurs start to fan out behind us, turning toward the jungle and forming a living, sharp-toothed wall, I ask, “The clearing isn’t mined, is it?”
“Mines?” Xin asks.
“Explosive traps triggered by weight,” Kat explains.
“No,” Xin says, “though I suspect such devices were used in the jungles surrounding us.”
The gates are chain link, topped with razor wire—a feeble stumbling block against just about anything that might come out of the jungle, including us, with the exception of Turquins, the big predatory birds that look like a cross between a turkey and a penguin. Two soldiers in a ten-foot tall guard tower stare at us. One points a large machine gun in our direction. As dorky as it feels, I force myself to smile and wave.
Both men look like they’ve smelled something foul. They have no idea who I am, and though they might recognize Xin, they don’t trust him. The machine gun is proof enough of that.
“Stop right there,” says one of the men, his voice cut with the threat of violence should we not obey.
I stop, just ten feet from the gate. Fifteen feet from the men. I look at their guard post and frown. Even up there, they’ll still be looking up at the warriors. Of course, they can also jump out and survive the fall if need be.
“See something you don’t like?” the second man says. He’s noticed my frown.
“We’d like to come inside,” I say. “I’m a friend of Merrill Clark.”
“Far as I know, he’s never said anything about you.”
I meet the man’s eyes. He’s young, maybe my age if you ignore the fact that despite my late teen appearance, I’m in my mid-thirties by surface years. “My name is Solomon Ull Vincent. I am the last hunter and leader of the men and women you now know as hunters.”
This catches their attention. They start eyeing me up and down, whispering to each other, but loud enough for me to hear.
“This is the guy?”
“He doesn’t look like much.”
“What if he’s lying? Could be lying.”
“He is with that freakjob...”
I glance at Xin. He’s unfazed by the insult, or perhaps doesn’t realize it’s an insult.
“The kid, too.”
They would let us in if I told them to, Xin says to my mind, but when he looks at me, his eyes say something else.
I know, I know, I think back, make an impression.
Without lifting my arms, or making a movement that might make me a target, or reveal I am the source of the
phenomenon, I direct a sphere of wind to form around one of the men. His whispered sentence is cut off by a “Whoa!” He rises into the air.
“Charlie!” the man shouts, reaching out for his partner. “Dude! Help me!”
But Charlie doesn’t move. He’s stuck in place, part of him in shock, the other part bound to the wooden floor, which has twisted around his feet. The wood, hewn from the trees that once filled this clearing, bends to my will.
The airborne soldier flails like a bird with broken wings until I bring him down, outside the gate. I spin him upright and hold him just a foot above the ground so that we’re face to face. It’s then that I’m struck by the man’s stature. “You’re short,” I say.
“W—what?” he replies. He looks me up and down. “You—you’re tall.”
I am? I look down, confused by this. Over the past years, I have grown taller and muscular. I grew a beard. All without noticing. “How tall?”
“Like six-five,” he says.
“Huh,” I say. It’s not really surprising. One of my uncles is six-seven.
Xin clears his throat.
Right. Make an impression.
“What’s your name?”
“Duane. Corporal Duane Cairns.”
“Well, Corporal,” I say. “You know who I am, yes?”
He nods. There’s no doubting it now. He’s probably heard stories about me, from the other hunters and from the freed prisoners, but I doubt he, or many of the other people here, believed them. He does now, of course.
“Could you open the gate so I don’t have to melt it?” I ask. “I’m trying to be polite.”
His eyes go wide. I’m not certain I could do such a thing. I think I could, but I’ve never tried. Still, since he’s floating in the air at the moment, he’ll believe I can do just about anything.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Charlie, open the gate!”
I motion to Charlie with my hand so that he knows it is, without a doubt, me who sets him free from the wood binding his legs. An electric motor buzzes a moment later and the gate grinds open.
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