Daniel Coldstar #1

by Stel Pavlou

  Daniel glanced down. The silver relic had secured itself to his dugs. “What the . . .”

  Inconspicuously, he tried prying it off, but it just made the pain worse. He tried again, harder this time. Nothing.

  A finger of ice ran down his spine. If he couldn’t get this thing off, would the Overseers disappear him again—or just kill him for it?

  “Master Overseer, sir!” Pinch called out. “Request a LightEye, sir!”

  The Overseers argued among themselves, angry grunts flying back and forth over their commlink.

  “Forty-one eighty-two, report,” demanded one of them.

  Daniel couldn’t look at them. He crawled around, with his hands in the dirt, and hoped they wouldn’t notice there was a bigger problem. “I’m still trying to locate the relic,” he said, short of breath.

  “Forty-one eighty-two, help sixteen thirty-three.”

  Oh no . . .

  “Forty-one eighty-two, respond.”

  Did they know something was up? Reluctantly, Daniel stopped what he was doing and got to his feet without saying a word. Keeping his back to them, he fired up his own F-light and staggered toward the entrance.

  How in the universe was he going to keep Pinch Servilles from seeing what was pinned to his chest?

  The truth of the matter was that he wasn’t. Pinch saw it immediately, glinting under the shine of Daniel’s F-light. And that look in his eye; a peculiar kind of joy that came from knowing Daniel was in trouble.

  “Sorry about Alice,” Pinch said sarcastically. “I had no idea he’d bolt for you like that—what are you doing with that relic?”

  “Can you help me?” Daniel asked, trying not to sound like he was begging. “Please.”

  “Why would I do that?” Pinch replied, taking a step closer, his eyes alive with excitement.

  There was that anger again, boiling inside Daniel, eager to knock a few teeth down this kid’s throat. “Okay, tell them,” said Daniel, “if you want to find out how fast the guards can get over here and save you.” He couldn’t help it. It just came out.

  It was all Pinch needed, just knowing that Daniel was afraid. “They trust me,” he explained, his voice filled with peculiar confidence. “Follow my lead from now on and perhaps I can help you. We’d make a powerful team, you and I.”

  This kid was so deluded he actually thought he had some kind of bargaining power with the Overseers? Unbelievable.

  “Sixteen thirty-three, report!”

  Pinch smiled. “Time to make a choice, Coldstar,” he said.

  Daniel took a moment to think about it, but there really was no other way of saying it. “You’re an idiot,” he said.

  Pinch stepped back as though he were the one in control, pointed at Daniel, and screamed. “He’s stealing the relic!”

  The Overseers aimed their blast-pikes squarely at Daniel. Marching at him in a line, there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

  “It was an accident!” Daniel protested, facing them. “I didn’t know it was going to happen!”

  “Forty-one eighty-two, hand over the relic!”

  They were just paces away now, the entire troop, electricity crackling from weapon to weapon.

  “I can’t!” Daniel explained, hot tears spilling from his eyes. “It’s stuck.” He tore at the silver relic but it would not budge.

  “Forty-one eighty-two, comply!”

  “It won’t move,” he said, falling to his knees, defeated.

  The Overseers loomed over him, so close; the stomach-churning reek of dead meat filled his nostrils.

  Daniel watched their rusted fingers tense on the triggers, and instinctively threw his arms up, crossing them over his face as though such a feeble gesture could protect him.

  “Here, take it!” he cried, bracing himself for more pain than he’d ever known.

  And that was when a miracle happened.

  A sheet of spinning air formed right in front of him; a shield of pure fury, howling like a living creature, and just like a tornado, it swept up everything in its path. Bits of shattered stone and rent metal whirled around its circumference, reaching such colossal speed that the debris glowed white hot, casting off lightning bolts and slicing through solid rock.

  Pinch and Blink instinctively dropped to the ground, clawing their fingers into the dirt in hopes of protecting themselves. The force of it all chopped through the Overseers’ weapons, leaving them defenseless. One by one, their feet left the ground. Struggling against the whirlwind’s wrath, they tried to flee.

  Whompff!

  Daniel’s head snapped back with a jolt as a shock wave blasted out from his body, exploding like a rocket motor, hurling the Overseers through the air and crushing them against the mine walls.

  And when they stopped struggling, and there was no life left inside their rotting armor, the shield of air disappeared in a puff, the bodies of the Overseers slumped to the ground—and all the awesome power that had protected him rested once again inside the silver relic attached firmly to Daniel Coldstar’s chest.

  11

  POINT OF NO RETURN

  Daniel had never seen so many mouths hanging open all at once.

  The stunned silence surrounding him was so overwhelming, only the distant thrum of grubs hammering away in other parts of the mine told Daniel that he hadn’t suddenly gone deaf.

  Daniel couldn’t figure out if they were afraid of him or in awe. He glanced over at Pinch; he looked like he’d been snatched by a Nightwatcher, blood drained from his face. He stumbled back against the mine wall and tore off back the way they’d all come.

  “Hey, should we—er, stop him?” said Blink.

  “What’s the point?” said Henegan, stepping over one of the Overseer bodies. “When this bunch don’t report in, I think the others are going to figure it out.”

  Nails glanced from one body to the next. “We’re so dead. . . .”

  Fix ran up to Daniel, getting right in his face, waving his arms around excitedly, and raving in gibberish.

  “I don’t speak Jarabic,” Daniel snapped, frustrated. “You know that.”

  “He says, do it again,” said Blink.

  “Do what again?”

  “Whatever you just did.”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  “Yeah, sure you didn’t.” Henegan picked at his teeth. “They’re all just taking a nap.”

  Fix grabbed Daniel’s arms and tried forcing him. Daniel shook him off. “Cut it out.”

  “Just do the thing with the arms,” Blink explained, clearing Fix out of the way.

  “What thing?”

  Blink tried his best not to get angry. “Did you just kill a bunch of Overseers or not?” He gestured to Fix. “Show him.”

  Fix clumsily crossed his arms over the top of his head. “Do it,” he urged. “Do it.”

  Daniel sighed. “All right,” he said.

  “Stand back, ladies,” said Henegan, pinning himself flat against the tunnel wall. “This could get interesting.”

  Daniel waited for them to get clear before doing what they wanted.

  Sheepishly, he raised his arms up, crossed them—but nothing happened. “Satisfied?”

  Minds were racing. There had to be a way to activate the relic. “He was kneeling when it happened,” said Nails. “Try kneeling.”

  Daniel had had enough. “I’m not kneeling! Don’t you get it? I don’t control this thing. If anything, it’s controlling me. I can’t even take if off!” He yanked at the silver relic again and again, but it was stuck fast.

  “Dee, you have to figure it out,” said Blink, a wobble in his voice, “or Nails is right: we’re all dead.”

  “What if we go this way . . . ?” Henegan stood in the doorway, peering into the dark chamber. “Maybe there’s a way out.”

  “Or not,” said Nails, but that didn’t stop a handful or so of grubs from gathering around, weighing the option of taking a chance.

  “We have no idea where that leads,” Blink warned.
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  Daniel shrugged. “Neither do they. And if we go back to the Racks, we’re all dead anyway.” He crossed into the black, his F-light failing to penetrate much beyond a few paces around him. “I’m the one they want,” he said. “Blame it all on me. Maybe I can stay hidden long enough to figure out how to work this thing, and come back for you.”

  Blink marched after him. “You don’t get to decide that, we all do.”

  “Then decide,” Daniel replied, “but I’m going. I don’t have a choice.” At his side, Alice’s hot breath blasted over his hand. How a trabasaur of that size had crept up on him was a mystery.

  Nails stood with him, pale faced and unable to mask the quiver in his voice; he knew what he was getting into, but somehow he found the courage anyway. “Don’t worry about tomorrow, eh? We might not see it anyway.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Henegan said, firing up his own F-light. “Besides, if they don’t disappear us, they’ll wipe us so fast we won’t even remember we found this place. Any takers on how far we get? I’m in for a stick.”

  Blink shook his head. “Shut up.”

  There were seven in all in the end, including Alice, with Fix and Gungy Wamp making up the last two. Choky stayed back behind the doorway; he didn’t have the guts. “See you back at the Racks,” he kept saying, in between wheezy laughs, while all around him grubs were doing the serious work of placing bets with Ogle Kog on how far the group would make it.

  Everything felt different in here. The floor was polished smooth, the seams between the sections barely noticeable at first. Each footstep made a kind of clanging sound that echoed in a hollow somewhere beneath the surface. They were walking on metal; like the deck of some enormous vessel. As their eyes adjusted to the dark, they spied ginormous metal ribs projecting up into the unknowable blackness above.

  As they moved deeper into the space, through armored corridors and smaller chambers, it became apparent that nobody had been keeping track of where they were going. Heading back now would be close to impossible—not that anybody had been planning on it.

  Until they rounded the next corner, and came face-to-face with a waiting Overseer.

  12

  ARMY OF DARKNESS

  “Look out!” Blink cried, bundling Daniel out of the way.

  The two boys hit the ground. But the Overseer they had just spotted didn’t so much as twitch. Alice whipped around, knocking the Overseer’s helmet clean off.

  A plume of dust followed it, arcing through the air before landing with a clatter right in front of Daniel’s face.

  While the other boys scattered, the F-lights trying to keep up with them like a swarm of panicked fireflies, Daniel glanced up to see—hundreds? Thousands? Everywhere he looked stood row upon row of Overseers, all covered in a thick blanket of dust—

  None of them were moving.

  “Alice!” Daniel cried, scrambling to his feet. “Hey! Will you quit it?”

  “They’re just suits of armor!” He grabbed the leash and yanked on it. “See?”

  He struck one of the Overseers. The figure crashed to the ground, armor plating tumbling in all directions, spilling dust across the ground.

  Reluctantly, Alice quit stomping his victim to bits, but not before getting in one last kick.

  “Feel better?”

  Alice flicked an ear.

  Blink couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “This is what they’ve been looking for?”

  “There must be an entire army down here,” Nails said, gladly taking Henegan’s helping hand up.

  “How long do you think they’ve been here?”

  Gungy the Mute, peering closely at the dents and scratches pitting the armor, said, “Since the dawn of time.”

  With the exception of Daniel, who didn’t know any better, the other grubs all gave Gungy their undivided attention.

  “Wait a minute,” said Blink. “You can speak?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you never said anything?”

  “You’re Gungy Wamp—the Mute,” said Henegan, butting in. “That means you don’t speak.”

  Gungy shrugged. “I like being left alone.”

  Somewhere in the darkness something clattered to the ground, its echo taking so long to return that the chamber had to be truly vast.

  The boys froze, waiting for what might follow.

  “None of us are going to be alone for much longer,” said Daniel in a whisper, “if we don’t get going.”

  No one argued. They set off so quickly they were almost running. With every step, more and more figures loomed out of the darkness. Overseers in shapes and sizes they’d never seen before—some with four arms, others with no arms at all—lines and lines of them, all standing to attention as though on a parade ground.

  “This is creepy. . . .” Nails said, under his breath. “There’re so many of them.”

  The hair on the back of Daniel’s neck stood on end, but he wasn’t about to give in to it. Alice, on the other hand—

  The sixteen-ton Hammertail suddenly switched gears and shot off in a different direction altogether.

  “What the—Hey!”

  Blink grabbed Daniel by the arm. “Let him go.”

  “He’ll get lost.”

  “We’re already lost! If he wants out, he’ll catch up,” said Blink. “Who cares?”

  “Maybe he smells something.”

  “It’s Alice,” Blink replied. “Of course he smells something—”

  Click . . . click . . . click.

  Daniel’s heart sank. “Oh, what’s he done now?”

  Click . . . click . . . click.

  “Alice!” Daniel cried.

  But Henegan waved his fingers over his neck, urging him to can it. “I don’t think that’s Alice,” he whispered.

  Click . . . click . . . click.

  “They found us,” said Gungy. “Run!”

  But no sooner had he taken a few steps than a whoosh of air blasted over their heads.

  “WHO DISTURBS?” the Nightwatcher crowed, its voice vibrating in every grub’s bones. “Who disturbs?”

  Swooping in with its talons glinting in the F-lights, the Nightwatcher sank its claws into Gungy Wamp’s shoulders and yanked him off his feet.

  With a beat of its wings, the boy was already six paces off the ground.

  And within a second he was gone completely, leaving nothing behind but the sound of his screaming.

  13

  ATTACK OF THE NIGHTWATCHERS

  The beat of massive wings thumped in the dark. More were coming.

  Daniel ducked behind another set of dusty Overseer armor, reaching for his F-light launcher.

  Setting it to retrieval mode, he aimed it at the light, pulled the trigger, and—

  >MALFUNCTION<

  “No, no, no . . .”

  He fiddled with the device, but nothing worked. His F-light refused to return to its launcher, instead shining down on his hiding spot even brighter than before—

  Whoosh!

  The armor rattled as a Nightwatcher swooped over Daniel’s head, talons just inches from his skin.

  Forget it. He tossed the launcher aside and ran, zigzagging in and out of the lines of Overseers, acutely aware that another Nightwatcher was breathing down his neck—

  More screaming.

  Fix and Nails were being lifted off their feet by a single Nightwatcher, one grub in each claw, but Blink hurled an Overseer helmet right at its snout.

  The Nightwatcher dropped the grubs, caught the helmet, and slung it right back, smashing Blink in the side of the head.

  He staggered, unable to figure out how to even stand up straight, incapable of fending off the next attack.

  Daniel didn’t stop to think. Yanking a hefty breastplate out of the collapsing shell of another long-dead Overseer, he plowed headlong into Blink, pulling him under it just as—

  Wham!

  A fist-sized dent punched through the armor, so deep it barely missed Daniel’s face.

&nb
sp; Wham! Wham!

  His arms buckled with each frenzied blow. He pulled his legs up under the plate and pushed with his feet—

  Wham!

  “Blink!” Daniel shrieked. “I can’t hold this much longer!”

  Wham! Wham!

  “Blink!”

  Blink, barely able to focus, reached out to help when a second set of metal claws tried lunging underneath to snatch him away.

  Ka-choom. Ka-choom. Ka-choom.

  That wasn’t a Nightwatcher. Something else was going on. The ground shook beneath them; light began pouring into the massive chamber.

  Ka-choom. Ka-choom. Ka-choom.

  Armor rattled.

  And all the while, Alice played with the pressure plates in the floor, enjoying the way he was able to make things happen like turn the lights on and off every time he stomped on one.

  But all that changed the moment the platforms rose up out of the ground. Humongous armored suits stood on each one, more like vehicles than body armor. They made Alice look like a drote in comparison, but it would take more than that to intimidate a Hammertail.

  Alice quickly smashed the closest one to smithereens before the platform could even deliver it all the way to the top.

  With gigantic plates of armor crashing in every direction, the startled Nightwatchers took to the air before they became targets themselves.

  Now was their chance! Blink and Daniel tossed their makeshift shield aside and helped each other up—but which way to go? There were halls and metal steps, all dotted around the perimeter. But which one to take?

  He glanced around, about to pick a direction at random, when he noticed an exit opening up into the familiar jagged rock of a cave and connecting tunnels. “There,” he said.

  Together they made a run for it.

  Inside the tunnel, the ground was uneven, loose in places and shaking violently, but neither boy let it slow them down.

  Blink glanced back over his shoulder. “Come on!” he yelled.

  Nails and Fix hobbled after them, blood glistening from the rips in their dugs. There was no sign of Henegan, maybe he was already out—

  Daniel darted in and out of the armor, keeping one eye on the Nightwatchers circling overhead. There was open space between him and the staircase out of here. He’d have to be quick if he was going to make it.