“It paid the bills.”
Nyara had scooped some of the clear, fast flowing water into her canteen and began to gulp at it deeply. It looked to Blake as if she hadn’t had anything to drink for a month, the way she was savouring it. But then he knew how vital water was to the elves. Without it, the World Tree couldn’t survive, and in their religion, the great tree and the mighty seas and rivers were entwined as older and younger siblings.
“We should all fill our bottles and take a drink,” Blake suggested, searching for his own flask. It had already been emptied of its more dubious contents, and he was thirsty.
“Why?” said Uldo. “I have plenty of good, strong pine mead to keep me going.”
“Trust me. It’ll do you good.” Blake headed down the slope to join Nyara.
And it did do them good. Maddox was the most enthusiastic about it, as if he had just discovered an entirely new element.
“It’s…It’s like nothing I ever tasted,” he said, amazed. “Like water, but different. Sweeter somehow. And I feel…”
“Energised?” Blake screwed the lid back on his flask.
“I don’t get what all the excitement is about,” Uldo growled, although Blake noticed he hadn’t thrown his water back in the river. “What’s so special about living for a thousand cycles anyway? We dwarfs can reach three hundred standard years of age as it is. That’s plenty long enough.”
“Although not everyone can endure the punishing gravity of Kromor can they?” Maddox pointed out. “Which is what I hear makes you dwarfs so robust and long-lived. Low metabolisms.”
“Yeah,” said Blake. “Then how does that explain them being able to eat and drink most anyone under the table without turning into a tub of lard?”
“Or why they have such short tempers?” Nyara added as she climbed up from her knees.
“Short tempers!” Uldo snapped. “Who says?”
“I rest my case,” Nyara muttered, and then she pointed down the river. “By my reckoning, we only have to follow the Shilita for about two leagues. Then it should be shallow enough to cross.”
Uldo looked up, startled. “Wait a minute. You never said anything about crossing!”
“How else do you suppose we head farther south, Master dwarf?”
“I just assumed there was a bridge or something.”
“Out here in the wilds?” said Nyara. “No. We need to be on the south side of the river as it drops down into the Gimrill Basin. This is the quickest route to the Ariad Pass.”
Maddox looked Uldo up and down. “Yes, but exactly how shallow is shallow?”
“We can help him,” Nyara said matter-of-factly, realising what Maddox was concerned about. “He can climb on the back of his friend.” She gestured to Cid who was standing back from the water, staring at it uncertainly.
Uldo frowned. It took him a little time before he understood the implication. Then his eyebrows shot up and he exclaimed: “What do you mean? Me? Climb on Cid’s back! By the gods! I’m not a child!”
“And I don’t like the water,” Cid added.
“That too!” Uldo pointed at his friend.
“Why? Is he going to rust or something?” asked Maddox.
“The water affects my joints,” the golem replied. “And it must not penetrate my core, or I may have problems.”
“What kind of problems?” Blake asked.
“My motors will cease to function.”
“He means he’ll seize up,” Uldo put in.
“Great.” Blake sighed. He knew the damn thing was going to be a liability.
“Well, we’ll have to risk it,” said Nyara. “There is only one place where the water is shallow enough within reach. Otherwise, it’s a long trek through thick forest before we find another stretch to cross. By that time, we’ll have lost a half a day’s hiking, maybe more. So we must cross where I say. Before the Tulgan feeds into the Sheerwater Falls.”
“The Tulgan?” said Maddox. “What’s that?”
“The next set of rapids. A longer and more violet stretch.”
“Alright,” said Blake. “You’re the guide.”
“Except I haven’t yet agreed to any of this nonsense!” Uldo puffed. “I won’t be carried about like an invalid. You hear me?”
“Then you better grow another two feet, dwarf,” Blake replied curtly, swinging his pack onto his shoulder. “Or drown. It’s up to you. Now, let’s get moving. We’ve wasted too much daylight as it is.” And he headed off after Nyara.
EIGHTEEN
1
It would have been folly, Gemini had realised, to track the hunters through the night. There was every chance that she could have lost their prints and get turned around in the dark. That was why she decided to take a few hours’ rest in the RV, with the protection and comfort it provided, and sought out a berth in the sleeping quarters. Not that she planned to sleep for too long. While she had been tired from the day’s exertions, she was eager to cut into the hunting party’s lead. And besides, she had never really needed to close her eyes for long. Gemini knew she could sometimes keep going with barely two hours a night, much to the amazement and envy of many of her friends at the Academy. It had served her well in her job when it was sometimes necessary to keep vigilant for long stretches at a time.
As it was, Gemini woke just before dawn, emerging from her cabin dressed in a deep green military poncho she had retrieved from her pack. A light rain was falling. And after snaffling a couple of energy bars from the ship’s canteen, she was soon on her way, exiting the RV via the airlock and tramping into the gathering dawn.
2
The going became easier for Gemini as morning progressed. At first, in dawn’s gloom and in the haze of rain, she still had to rely on her torch to pick out the tracks in the undergrowth, and she moved at barely half the speed. However, her skills as a tracker were such that she hardly ever paused in her pursuit, and she was still able to keep up a steady pace, another attribute her fellow classmates at the Academy found astonishing. It was even more impressive since she had known this kind of woodcraft since she was a child. Taught to her by her father as soon as she could walk, when she joined the Academy, she could follow almost any animal track in almost any terrain. Had it not been for her slightly prickly relationship with authority, she would have probably graduated a year ahead of the other students. Some of her instructors even went so far as to suggest she knew more than most qualified rangers. That didn’t stop them holding her back even so, feeling she lacked discipline. And in an ever-changing and demanding political landscape, rashness was never considered a favourable personality trait in the Patrol.
Yeah, and look where that rashness has got you now, Gem, she found herself thinking, as she came to a huge log choked with moss. Here she finally stopped as she noticed, by the tracks, a pause in her quarry’s activity. They must have taken a break, and, deciding it was as good a time as any to take stock herself, Gemini knelt in the damp and pulled down her hood to examine the footprints more carefully. At the ship and in the dark, it hadn’t been so easy to take the measure of what kind of people she was dealing with. Now, with a dull grey light penetrating the treetops, she was better able to make an assessment. And it was as confusing as it was surprising.
The first set of prints was clearly dwarfish: the heavy boots and their size dictated that almost at once. No surprise there. Dwarfs were natural hunters, able to endure all manner of extreme environments and many enjoyed the conquest of such activities. The next prints were most probably human, one of which was a heavy-set man, the other lighter and smaller. Again, nothing odd in that. Humans had been exploiting the natural resources of the star system for most of the century and were the reason why the Ranger Patrol existed in the beginning. But then there were the huge, deep footsteps of the third. This was more of a mystery. It was certainly someone large, maybe even as tall as seven feet. But not an orc or a small ogre, she guessed, who didn’t move with such a peculiar militaristic precision. Gemini thinned her lips
and put this peculiarity to the back of her mind. For while these tracks were clearly odd, they had nothing on the last set of markings, almost too light to pick out amongst the other prints. Indeed, back at the ship, and for most of the morning, Gemini hadn’t seen them at all. Now, much closer, she could just about see a few faint outlines. And their emergence was somewhat startling.
Could they be travelling with an elf?
Gemini carefully moved some leaves aside and continued to study the ground. It explained how the party seemed to be striking through the forest with purpose and speed, and why she had had only a couple of short breaks to make sure her quarry didn’t pull too far ahead. But the very fact that the hunters were in the company of an elf clashed with the idea that the hunt was a simple act of opportunistic greed. A small band of human or dwarfish hunters who were intent on making their fortune on the black market from a dragon carcass was one thing, but with help from the indigenous population, she wasn’t so sure. The dragon had been devastating many areas of Terevell while the High King Zerian appeared to have sat idly by. Could there be a different motivation for the expedition entirely? Perhaps born out of need rather than greed?
Easing herself up from the ground, Gemini let these riddles drift through her mind. Never more so than in that moment she felt oddly alone and inadequate. She was just one person, after all, chasing a bunch of disparate peoples whose make-up and motivations were not immediately obvious. Worse than that, if racial differences had been put aside to kill a dragon, that made the group very focused. And potentially more dangerous than she had first anticipated.
3
Even in the early morning light, the stalker, crouched on the treeless crags overlooking the snaking twists and turns of the river below, was almost imperceptible. Part of that was to do with its practised stillness. No movement was wasted that might draw attention to itself. A skill it had learnt from long, silent vigils in pursuit of its occupation. But the tough, camo-cloak wrapped around the stalker’s body also helped, enabling it to blend into the grey, pitted rocks behind it as it kept its binoculars trained down to the chasm below.
Not that the stalker had seen any untoward movement. Only a couple of white stags, with their impressive, golden antlers, taking a drink in the shallows of the fast-flowing water before bounding away. Yet, long experience had informed the stalker that there was a change in the offing: the slightest nagging at the back of its mind to keep it alert, and, sure enough, not a few minutes later through the treeline, a small, compact group, led by a high-born elf, stepped out into the morning sun.
The stalker sighed in relief. When the RV hadn’t landed at Garia’s Point as expected, it had been forced to work out precisely what had happened. And when it had confirmed the hunting party had survived the crash, it had had to strike out along an unfamiliar route ahead, hiking for a long stretch through the night until it had reached the river. This had taken the stalker out of its way for many miles. Unnecessary energy had been wasted. And even though it was part of the job to deal with all manner of unexpected events when they arose, no matter how meticulously one planned, the detour had put the stalker in an irritable mood.
Which was about to get worse.
On the stalker’s hip, a communicator began to vibrate. Usually, the device was turned off. Stealth was the stalker’s stock in trade, especially in an environment like the Deep Forest. Yet after making contact with the hunting party, the stalker’s intention was to check in with the employer to notify of the progress made. It had not expected to receive a call yet, however, and the stalker lowered the binoculars and pulled back its cloak.
The small unit clipped to the stalker’s belt buzzed. The stalker looked at it warily, as if the device were acting unnaturally. Then, the stalker lifted its dark eyes across the chasm again and down to the river where the hunting party were gathered at the water’s edge. This was a most inconvenient interruption. The stalker didn’t want to lose sight of the party, although it was likely they would have to make their way along the riverbank for quite some time to find a shallow place to cross. The stalker hesitated, the communicator humming loudly even against the buffeting wind. Then the stalker tutted, snatching the device from its belt, and retreated from the edge of the long drop, and into the semi-cover of some twisted prayer bushes.
4
Despite rollcall being less than half a standard hour away, Hanaway was still in his quarters with his uniform jacket unbuttoned, packing. Once his official duties were over, he intended to take a trip to the Border Gate and meet up with Janik. It had always been thus. He had to take charge of the package, after all. But now he felt an even greater sense of urgency. The last few hours had impressed upon him just how fragile his plan was. And he hated not being in control. It didn’t help he was marooned in the back of nowhere, in the very furthest reaches of the Star System. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t put things right. To get things back on track. And to that end, his attention drifted to the green vial resting on his pressed shirts, the one he had confiscated illegally in his Sweeper days many moons ago.
Hanaway licked his lips. He had done quite a few questionable things in his past, but never had he had as many restless nights as he had over the last six months. Like last night. His eyes felt gritty after and his head ached from too little sleep. It didn’t help that his call hadn’t been answered, of course, and he turned a frustrated look over to the projection plate again. For most of the night he had been trying and failing to get a response from the machine, and Hanaway beginning to worry that this new proposal—so confidentially espoused to Janik just a few hours before—might not come to fruition after all. Why the hell wasn’t he calling back? Hanaway thought. The hours on Genek IV and on Terevell were roughly the same. It would be morning there as here. Had something gone wrong? Had all the arrangements he had meticulously made come to nothing?
Hanaway slapped down the lid of his case in frustration and turned once again to the animated mobius strip hovering over the plate where the subject of the call should be, rocking infuriatingly back and forth, as if mocking him. Then he looked beyond the plate to the open door to his bathroom. Usually, he kept that door closed. Or, he had done so ever since he’d seen the shadow standing there, lingering in the doorway when he’d risen groggily from his bed one night to fetch a drink. It was now the third time he had seen it: a faceless, human-shaped smudge of blackness, hair crawling as if it had been submerged in water. It seemed to stare at him, although the shadow’s eyes were little more than deeper hollows in the blackness. Then it had retreated into the darkness of the room. Only then had Hanaway found the courage to look for it, approaching the bathroom with all the fear of a wild animal approaching a campfire, but the apparition had disappeared.
After that encounter, Hanaway had briefly entertained the idea of fixing a lock on the door. Not that he was confident it would make the least difference. And that was why he was so desperate to get off this planet. The planet was messing with his mind. Most probably infecting him with some unseen toxins that were giving him hallucinations. How else had the shadow found its way into his rooms in the beginning? His quarters were heavily guarded from outside. No one could have entered his quarters unchecked unless they had some kind of supernatural ability.
Hanaway swallowed. He was jittery enough as it was after his third cup of coffee. He even began to cross the room to slam the door shut, when the mobius strip began to pulse, indicating an in-coming call. Hanaway abruptly swung around.
Thank god.
Hanaway barked at the plate to accept the call and the mobius strip faded away. In its place a figure—whom Hanaway knew only as Corvus—soaked into view.
Dressed in a long camo-cloak that was tugged in the wind, and light grey trail armour with a long-nosed sniper rifle strapped to the back, the image trembled and stuttered, no doubt due to the distance and the backdrop. It looked like the transmission was coming from some high vantage point. Nor could Hanaway see Corvus’s features. They were obscu
red by a deep grey hood.
Hanaway stepped around to face the holo-image. He had only ever had one other meeting with Corvus, when he had settled the deal. Even then, Hanaway hadn’t seen that face. All he knew was that he was an elf, from the far northern lands of Terevell on the edge of the Contamination. Most everyone called them Dark Elves up there. The Dark Elves called themselves the Forgotten People.
“Where have you been?” Hanaway demanded. “I’ve been calling for most of the night.”
“This wasn’t our designated time to check in,” a soft voice said, so quietly that Hanaway almost didn’t hear it against the flapping of the wind. “Like we agreed.”
“Yes, well, we’ve got a problem. Something I need to talk to you about urgently.”
Corvus didn’t move. “And?”
Hanaway cleared his throat. In all his years as a Sweeper, facing off some of the most brutish and desperate creatures in the Void, the hooded figure somehow made him nervous.
Or I’m getting soft in my old age, Hanaway added mentally.
“A slight obstacle that has the potential to upend our plans,” he added.
“Your plans,” Corvus corrected.
“Alright. My plans. A kink that needs sorting.”
“What kind of kink? I’m in position. I have eyes on the hunting party. They’ve finally reached the Shilita river.”
Hanaway frowned, distracted for a moment. “Finally? What does that mean?”
“They experienced a setback. Their ship came down twenty clicks from Garia’s Point. A crash. I’m not sure how or why. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have disrupted the hunt unduly. The party are carrying onto the target and left their goblin mechanic to fix the ship.”
“No injuries?”
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