Panta stirred in the other room, and he called out. "These brazen fellows that Maggie went off with—"
"The Jaggets?"
"Aye," Orick said. "Where would they have her?"
"Just about anywhere," Panta said, padding into the kitchen. She stood in the doorway on all fours, put her front paws out and stretched seductively, her rump in the air. "There are Jaggets all over the country. Perhaps before saying where they might take her, I should ask you why they might take her."
Orick had already explained to Panta that he was from Tihrglas, so now he told her all about their exploits on Fale and other worlds. He had no reservations in telling her things that he might never mention to a human. Though many a bear will grow grumpy and irritable, there never was a bear with an ounce of avarice, and avarice is what led humans into so many errors.
"If the Jaggets have taken her to keep her away from the dronon," Panta said, "they'll have her at one of their fortresses. It's beyond the power of a bear to get into one of those places, and I wouldn't try, if I were you."
"The poor child," Orick said, "she's had such a rough life, I wouldn't want to add to her burdens. I'm worried sick over her."
"Perhaps your friends can help when they get here," Panta said. Orick grunted in appreciation, and Panta licked his face.
The door chimed. Panta went to the corner, looked out the window. "Vanquishers!" she whispered. "Stay out of sight."
She hurried to the door and opened it. A deep voice said, "Citizen, records indicate that you were at Flaming Springs last night."
"Yes," Panta said. "I had dinner and swam with a friend."
"Were you there at the time of the shootings?"
"There was a shooting?" Panta asked in mock horror. "I had no idea. I left early."
"It is strange how many people left early," the vanquisher said.
"I was only there for a short time," Panta said. "I went only to choose a mate. It's that time of year."
"Did you find someone?"
"Yes, an old friend named Footh. He left just an hour ago. He can verify my story."
"We shall speak to him, citizen," the vanquisher grumbled.
Panta closed the door, walked swiftly back to Orick and spoke to a grill on the wall. She talked to it for several moments before Orick realized that she was talking to Footh, using little code phrases to make sure that he would verify her story.
"Stay home," Footh told her. "The vanquishers are all over the highways. The holovid networks say that someone carrying a Terror escaped from Fale. The vanquishers tried to arrest her here last night."
She thanked him, and said, "Off." The box quit speaking. Orick had seen so many wonders over the past few days it only made sense that folks who could walk between worlds could talk to each other while miles apart.
"Well, you heard him," Panta said. "We need to stay inside today. We could try calling the Jaggets, ask to speak to your friend, but the dronon will be monitoring all the phones. I don't think we can do anything until your friends get here."
Orick looked around the house forlornly, wondering what a simple bear could do. "The fool rushes blindly down the rocky trail, while the superior bear makes sure of his path," Orick said, recalling the only bit of wisdom he could dredge up. "I should never have come here. I'd quit the place if I could. I'm afraid I've made a mess of this."
"You've made a mess of nothing," Panta said. "Why, your friends are all over the news. They're just as likely to get caught with you as they would have been without."
"That's not true. Maggie and I stirred up a hornets' nest, and now Gallen is going to walk through the gate and get stung. I have to fix this if I can, Panta. Once it gets dark, I have to go warn Gallen."
Panta watched him for a long time. "Do you really believe that this Everynne is a good person?"
"Och, the woman's nothing but cream, as we'd say back in Tihrglas," Orick assured her. "I'd bet my life on it."
"You're betting all of our lives on it," Panta said.
"I'd do that, too."
"Then I'll come with you," Panta offered. "You'll need a cover story, and two bears out for a ride isn't uncommon."
Orick smiled, and they spent the day in the house, eating what they would, frolicking when the mood took them. Panta worked for a textile company, designing prints for cloth. She showed Orick her samples, and Orick found that her art spoke to him like nothing he'd ever seen. She wove cloth in the colors of the forest, greens and grays and the shades of the sky. She wove pebbles under rushing water, sunlight streaming through leaves. Many of her patterns featured bears, cubs running through fields of tan, an old bear staring at the moon. Orick could look at the cloth, and sometimes he would hear sounds, bear voices talking, the grunting of a sow as she dug for tubers. The pictures awoke his racial memories, and when he looked at the pictures, he looked through them into the dimly recalled dream time of bears.
Though Panta's people had left the wilds, the wilds had not left her, and Orick saw that he would miss Wechaus, would miss Panta when he left.
That night, after dark, Orick could not sleep. Gallen and the others would not drive through the gate until near dawn, but he was eager to get to the hills, prepare a message to warn Gallen.
He paced through the house on all fours, his claws raking the hardwood floors. Finally, near midnight, Panta said, "Let's go," and they went to her car.
She drove along the highway in the darkness. Once they passed a convoy of magtrucks filled with vanquishers. They appeared to be moving large numbers of soldiers. Another time they passed a roving patrol, and Orick felt nervous. He watched the snow-laden hills until he spotted the beaten path where he and Maggie had driven down from the gate. He told Panta to slow the car and lower the hood. As soon as she did, he smelled vanquishers.
"Drop me here, then off with you," Orick growled. He could not take a chance that she would linger near this spot-not with the vanquishers patrolling the area.
"I'll come back for you," she said.
Orick studied her profile in the darkness, and he longed to stay with her forever. "Do that," he said. He leapt from the moving car, and Panta sped away. Orick sniffed the ground. The vanquishers had walked up the path. A cool wind drifted down from the hills, carrying their scent. Orick began stalking, his head low to the ground.
He took nearly an hour to reach a small hilltop. The light was faint—the stars were thin here, but a fiery ring ran up the sky at the horizon, giving almost as much light as a moon. Orick looked down into the glade, smelled vanquishers for a long time before he finally spotted them.
Three of them sat as still as stones in the snow, hidden beneath a white sheet, watching up a small draw. Orick was surprised to find so few of them and wondered why they kept so far from the gate. Apparently they had followed the trail a ways, saw that the airbikes had materialized from thin air, but perhaps they just couldn't believe their luck, or maybe they did not realize that the beaten snow led to a gate opening.
Orick watched them for awhile, studied the hills. He could see the forbidding snow-covered top of the mountain, the slopes along two arms. The problem was that he could not circle up to the gate opening without being spotted. The vanquishers had set their surveillance post here precisely because it did allow them to view the area on all sides.
So Orick waited. Given the circumstances, he had no option but to stay through the night. When Gallen and Everynne came downhill, he could roar, warn them of the ambush, and then wade into battle. But until then, he could do nothing.
After nearly an hour, two of the giant vanquishers stood, then headed uphill, running along a ridge. Apparently they had been redeployed. Orick decided to strike.
He crept downhill, his feet padding through the snow. When Orick closed to within a dozen yards, the lone vanquisher turned and glanced at him for a moment, but Orick had bear-sized boulders behind him. He merely stood still in the shadows until the vanquisher turned away again.
Orick raced over the snow, lea
pt at the vanquisher's back, climbing over its shoulder to rip at its throat. The vanquisher tried to stand, raised the butt of his incendiary rifle and smashed it against Orick's face, but Orick merely wrapped his arms around the ogre, ripping at the green skin.
The vanquisher fired his rifle, then threw himself on the ground, and for a moment Orick rolled free. He twisted and leapt at the vanquisher, grabbing the creature's Adam's apple. The vanquisher unsheathed a knife and plunged it into Orick's shoulder, slicing through tendons.
Orick slapped the vanquisher's head with a paw, knocking it down, then tore out its throat.
When the vanquisher lay dead in the snow, Orick turned and rushed uphill till he found the end of the trail where he and Maggie had first materialized. Orick and Gallen had long ago worked out a system to warn one another of dangers on the road. Orick left his paw print and scratched twice beneath it. Since Orick was not sure if Gallen would enter this world before or after dawn, Orick rolled in the snow, beating it down so that his message would be more likely to attract attention. Then he rushed downhill, heading back for the road.
Halfway there, he discovered that his right shoulder hurt, and he began to limp. Blood was pouring from the wound, but he had not noticed it in the heat of the battle.
He licked at the blood, made his way down to the highway. Panta was nowhere to be seen. Orick grumbled under his breath and began limping down the road, watching for signs of movement in the hills, hoping he did not meet a patrol.
The cold night air sapped his warmth. His blood was leaking away, and he felt small, helpless out here in the wilds, so far from home. Once, he heard voices and raised his head in fear. He did not think he could outrun trouble, but after a moment, he realized that he had been dreaming voices. Another time, he found himself feeling weak, and he just sat on the roadside for a moment. A passing vehicle roused him from his sleep, and he looked about, headed north again, wondering what had become of Panta.
He felt like a cub, lost in the deep woods. For a time he walked, thinking that he could hear the mesmerizing sound of wind rushing through trees.
He had not gone far when he heard the deep voices of vanquishers shouting up ahead to his right. His head spun. He was so weak he didn't know if he could leap from the road.
Gallen looked down at the ruined body of the bear. Many of the bones were burned all the way through, and it looked as if the bear had died while trying to paw fire from its face. Gallen could not cry. The pain went too deep for that, tasted too bitter. He felt only a hardness, a cold anger that demanded vengeance.
Veriasse shook his head. "We must go. Our friend gave his life trying to warn us. Let us heed that warning."
Veriasse powered up his airbike, turned and headed back down the trail to the highway. Everynne pulled her bike up beside Gallen, touched his shoulder. "I don't know what you are thinking, what you might be planning. But there is nothing we can do for Orick now."
"I know," Gallen said. He squinted at the morning sun, pulled his robe tightly about him to keep out the cold. They rode their bikes downhill, hit the highway, and turned north.
They drove for twenty minutes in silence. A creepy sensation stole over Gallen, as if he were being watched. Once, the feeling was so powerful that when they entered a valley, he was forced to stop and gaze out over the white, empty hills. There were no trees, just small bushes and rocks to give shade. No birds sang from the bushes; nothing moved. Even the wind was still. Yet Gallen felt watched.
Veriasse stopped beside him. "Do you feel it, too?" he said. "My bones are trembling in anticipation."
"I haven't seen anything. Nothing has moved," Gallen answered.
Veriasse glanced slowly from side to side, only his fierce blue eyes moving. "That is what bothers me. Gallen, listen with your mantle. See if you can hear any radio conversations. Let it scan for military channels." Veriasse pulled off his gloves, raised his hands in the air as if he were surrendering.
Gallen closed his eyes, freed his senses. The thrusters on their airbikes sounded suddenly loud, but Gallen listened beyond that, began picking up radio frequencies. Images flashed through his mind from commercial holo broadcasts, music played from radio stations. Beyond that, he could pick up some chatter—pilots to the north seeking landing clearance in a city.
"Nothing," Gallen said at last.
Veriasse put his hands down, shook his head. "The same here. I smell nothing. Last time I was here, the dronon had a fairly strong presence on Wechaus. Don't you think it odd that you would hear no military calls at all?"
Gallen agreed. Yet there was nothing they could do but go forward. He hit the thrusters. The bike lifted and hummed down the highway, until at last in the distance he saw smoke rising from a small compound of buildings.
Veriasse pulled beside Gallen. "There's a good inn ahead. Let's stop and see if we can get some news."
As Gallen neared the inn, he could discern white limestone buildings around green pools of steaming water. There were many swimmers near the pools, shivering in the cool air, eager for the water. Gallen had not bathed in several days. He felt grimy, tired. It looked like a good place to stay.
They pulled up to the front, stopped their airbikes, looked through the windows. The dining room was nearly full, dozens of young couples eating breakfast, smiling, some of them laughing.
Gallen felt disconnected from them, found it somehow abhorrent that these people were laughing when he felt such profound pain. Orick was dead, and Gallen wanted the world to mourn with him.
Everynne and Veriasse got off their bikes, but Gallen just sat for a moment. There was an odd smell of smoke in the air, as if something had burned nearby.
Veriasse went to the door, and it slid open at his approach. A golden serving droid rushed to greet them, and Veriasse looked back at Gallen questioningly. "Are you coming?"
Gallen shook his head. "You eat. I'm not hungry. I'll keep watch out here." Gallen arched his back to loosen muscles tightened by too much driving.
Everynne said, "Are you sure? You'll feel better if you come inside where it's warm. Please, come in with me."
"I want to be alone," Gallen said.
Everynne squeezed his hand, went inside. He watched Everynne and Veriasse through the windows, saw them take a seat. A soft breeze stirred, and Gallen used his mantle, listened to the swimmers laughing at the pools. Yet there was something odd, a sound of whispering in the back parking lot. Gallen could not be certain. It might only have been reeds rattling in the wind, but he needed to stretch, get off the bike, so he climbed off and walked nonchalantly around the left side of the building.
The back parking lot held several dozen aircars and magcars. He stared at them a moment, wondering. It seemed that the lot held more cars than the inn could warrant.
His mantle picked up whispering ahead and to his right, at the back of the building. Gallen crept around a small potted tree, looked at the back of the building. Fifty feet away, three men hunched over a box that was linked to an absurdly large transmitter antennae. They wore white cloth combat armor. One of them looked up at Gallen guiltily.
Gallen did not have time to think. His mantle did it for him. He pulled out his incendiary rifle and fired. At this range, to hit one was to hit all. The chemical discharge slapped over two men. They blazed white as the sun. Gallen flinched, looked away, and found himself running to the front of the building.
Just as he rounded the corner, he met four men in cloth combat armor. He holstered his rifle and pulled out his sword in one move, whipped it overhead and decapitated the first in line. He leapt in the air, kicked one man in the face and sliced through two others, then bellowed as he reached the front door of the inn.
He could see Veriasse inside, sword in hand, swinging like a madman. A dozen "patrons" of the inn had him surrounded, and they held small stunners. They were trying to knock him down, but their weapons had no effect. Everynne was down, half sprawled across a table, blood pouring from her nose, apparently unconsciou
s. A dozen warriors with heavier arms were rushing from the back apartments beside the pools.
Gallen leapt through a large glass window, landed on a table. He pulled his incendiary rifle, fired at the side doors, hitting a droid that had scrambled for cover. The resulting fire effectively sealed the door, and Gallen jumped, giving a flying roundhouse kick to the back of the head of one of Veriasse's opponents.
Within seconds, Veriasse's sword put down the nearest attackers, and he scrambled for Everynne's pack, pulled out the Terror and tossed it to Gallen.
"This is what they want!" he shouted. "Gallen, send the arming code."
Gallen held up the Terror as if it were an icon, and every eye in the room fastened on him. People froze at their tables. No one moved.
"All of you get back!" Gallen shouted. "I've instructed my mantle to detonate this if you don't give us the road!" Gallen could only hope that his ruse would work.
"We've got jammers! We've got jammers!" one soldier yelled.
"You mean the jammers that were out back?" Gallen shouted. "I fried them."
"We have a backup!" the soldier shouted, trying to rally his people.
"Are you willing to bet the lives of everyone on this world that your jammers will work?" Veriasse asked.
That seemed to cow them. The soldiers hesitated. None dared step forward.
Veriasse pulled at Everynne's arm, turned her on her stomach and lifted her, cradling her like a child. He began walking toward the door, and Gallen stalked behind them, holding the Terror high.
Outside, Gallen got on his bike. Dozens of infantrymen in white cloth body armor were rushing from the back apartments. Gallen began counting. There had to be over two hundred of them. He looked at the patrons in the dining hall. None had shock on their faces, no expressions of horror. Only anger, disappointment. He suddenly realized that all of them were military personnel.
The Golden Queen - Book 1 of the Golden Queen Series Page 27