by Dan Krokos
At first I think she’s talking to my Rhys. I’d feel better if Sophia weren’t afraid. Maybe it’s not true, but I feel like she has a better idea of the risk. She grew up here, since birth.
Noble climbs off his horse. “It doesn’t have to be. We get the Torch, we survive. Very simple.” He pulls out a sword of his own, a scimitar. “If any of you can’t pull your weight in battle, I ask that you leave now, before endangering the rest of us.”
Peter and Rhys almost physically puff themselves up. None of Alpha team would back down, ever.
Except that I nearly leave right then, getting as far as pulling my reins to the left to turn Axela around. But I don’t. I just have to stay out of earshot, or, if I can’t, block out anything Nina says.
“All right, then,” Noble says.
In the distance, Gane has created a pile of dirt taller than the Humvee.
Noble begins to pick his way down the valley wall. The way is steep, but there are countless handholds and platforms to break on. Or break ourselves on, should one of us slip.
“Quickly!” Noble says as we climb off our mounts and follow.
Nina sees us before we’re ten feet down the wall. I pause and loose an arrow into the valley. It arcs up and then down and lands three feet from Nina’s foot. I fire another one, aiming based on the first arrow’s flight, and she watches it arc toward her, then calmly takes a step to the left. The arrow shatters on the rock she was standing on. Her laughter reaches my ears.
Gane considers us for a moment, then jumps into the hole, his riding cloak billowing like a parachute. The dirt flies out in a fury now, almost misting in the air, a bluish geyser.
We descend faster. The rocks blur past as I sprint down the mountain, leaping from clearing to clearing. I bend my knees to absorb the impacts, rolling when I have to. My heart races in a good way, and the fear is pushed into a corner of my mind, because all I focus on is the descent. The others become vague blurry shapes, jumping and scrabbling for traction in my peripheral vision. The buzz of dirt bursting from the hole is thunder to the silent lightning overhead. A shelf of rock collapses under me, and I slide the last ten feet on my heels.
The five of us hit the valley floor at the same time.
“Gane!” Nina shouts. The word echoes off the valley walls.
Gane is still in the hole, but that doesn’t stop him from breaking apart the enormous pile of dirt and throwing it at us. The mini-mountain rumbles and disintegrates, and chunks of dirt and rocks zip toward us in a moving desert storm. I duck and press my forearm to my eyes as the stinging grit hits me full in the face. Rocks ping off my armor. I hear a wet thunk, and Rhys groans next to me. I hear Peter fall to his knees, but I can’t open my eyes yet. The wind and debris hammers us until my hair is heavy with dirt and my eyes are too caked to open.
“Rhys! Peter!” I say, and get a mouthful of dirt as a reward.
“Fine,” Peter yells over the roar. “I’m fine!”
Finally the wind stops.
The air is foggy with bluish dirt. A breeze pumps through the valley and clears the air some.
I blink the gunk out of my eyes and see the one thing we came to prevent.
Tears of frustration turn the dirt in my eyes to mud. Sheer stubbornness keeps my knees from collapsing. We came all this way to be stopped by a pile of dirt. Our world is lost because of a dirt pile.
The others stand up around me and dust themselves off, making small sounds in their throats when they see what I see.
Nina holds the Torch high above her head.
Ihave no thought besides She must die. As Gane pulls himself out of the hole, I run toward Nina, then skid to a stop thirty feet away, feet churning up the loose dirt. The Torch earned its name. It’s a staff of shining metal nearly four feet tall. The end is capped by a glowing ball of red light too bright to look at. I focus on Nina’s face instead.
I pull an arrow from my quiver, then string it and pull back in the same motion. The whole movement takes a half second. Nina hasn’t even begun to move yet, save for a slight widening of her eyes. I see only her; her hand tightens on the Torch, but if she was planning to bring the eyeless down to stop me, they’re too far away, still hidden in their caves. The arrow zips through the air, straight for Nina’s face.
Until Gane waves his hand like he’s swatting a gnat, and the arrow curves up and tumbles harmlessly behind them, past the Humvee puffing oily smoke into the air.
Nina smiles, and the Torch glows brighter, a stoked coal. The eyeless surface in unison and huddle in the dark openings. Thousands of white, eyeless heads cluster in the caves, all the way up the walls. I fight to keep my eyes on the threat in front of me, not the threat waiting for me. But the sight of them does what Nina probably intended—it shakes us. Someone gasps behind me. Rhys mutters a curse.
Ending this is the only thing that will save us. My fingers are deft and sure, even if my mind is not. I grab for another arrow, but Gane’s eyes are on me now, and I feel his mind too. He tears the quiver from my back and the leather rips into pieces and the arrows all tumble out, floating around me, spiraling, until they explode into a cloud of sawdust the wind carries away as soon as it’s formed. Splinters stab at the exposed skin on my face. I squint against them, going to one knee as Gane forces me to kneel. Behind me, I hear the others hitting the ground. He can’t control all of us at once, Noble said. I can only marvel at how resolve can melt into despair this fast. I want to move, and charge, and fight, but I can’t. I keep waiting for the eyeless to pour down from the walls and cover us like a blanket.
But wait. The hold on me is tenuous. I feel Gane’s mind ebbing on my skin, barely keeping all of us in place. I have to wait for the right moment. I can still do this. I can save us.
“Give me the Torch,” Gane says to Nina, holding out his hand. When she hesitates for a second, Gane tries to rip it from her hands with his mind. But Nina’s grip is strong.
The Torch flies toward Gane with Nina still attached. He tries to duck, but her fist slams into his temple. She lands on her feet.
Gane’s mouth opens, eyes rolling back in his head, and the hold on me disappears completely. He falls to his knees in the dirt, sagging, and Nina swings the Torch like a golf club. Gane flinches away, but it catches the top of his head and knocks him on his back. He writhes in the dirt, stirring it with his heels.
I stand up and hear the others do the same behind me. We’re thirty feet away, but close enough to rush Nina.
She is heaving, breathless. “Come at me and I’ll bring them down on all of us!”
I want to say she’s bluffing, but I don’t know how the Torch works. I have to trust that Nina didn’t come all this way just to sacrifice herself.
I do a quick mental rundown of our weapons. Peter is the only one with a gun, but it’s a shotgun. Firing it would risk destroying the Torch, which could have consequences I don’t want to think about.
But Peter must not care.
He steps up beside me and hefts the shotgun to his shoulder. He’s willing to take that risk.
Nina’s eyes are different. They’re wide, but not with surprise. It’s like she’s seeing something only in her mind. It must be distracting, because she doesn’t even try to move. Peter’s shotgun booms, and the armor over Nina’s legs sparks and she sprawls face-first in the dirt. I almost scream in triumph. The shot didn’t seem to breach her armor, but she’s down, and that’s a step in the right direction.
The Torch rolls away from her open fingers, and she squirms just like Gane did.
Gane, who is suddenly no longer on the ground. I don’t see him anywhere.
The important thing is Nina let go of the Torch, but it doesn’t have the effect I was hoping for. The eyeless are no longer hiding inside the dark of their caves.
Thousands of them are descending with a unified scream.
They converge on us from both sides, twin waves of white pouring down the valley walls. I force myself to look away. If I don’t, I’ll fre
eze. They’ll wash over me and turn my body into red mist.
Instead I focus on what we came for.
I sprint for the Torch as Nina rolls onto her back and chokes on a scream. A guttural sound, half pain and half rage. The sandy dirt rises off the ground and swirls around us, but I can’t tell if it’s Gane or just the wind. My eyes sting but I keep moving. The distance is only thirty feet, but it feels like the Torch is a mile away. I can hear the eyeless coming closer; the scraping of thousands of claws on rock blur into a buzz.
Nina grabs for the staff and falls short, fingers clawing in the dirt. I’m ten feet away now. She gets up on one elbow and lunges again, but I skid to a stop and pick up the Torch as Nina clamps her hand on the staff, next to mine.
The Torch vibrates under my grip. Power rolls up my arm and into my brain, and I get a glimpse of everything around me, filtered through a thousand psychic minds, all connected. It’s breathtaking and overwhelming, but at the same time completely natural. I see with their minds, I see us, as they barrel down the walls, claws reaching forward, gripping rock. I see with their minds as Peter tracks the leading one with his shotgun. I see Gane staggering away from the group, holding his head with both hands. I see Rhys sidestep an eyeless and knock it into the huge hole with his dual swords, only to be pulled in when the already dying monster catches his ankle. Vaguely I’m aware that Rhys can handle one eyeless, but that his absence will hurt us.
Then they’re on us, and I force the vision away.
Nina has enough time to pull herself up while I blink rapidly, disoriented as my normal vision returns. It was too much too fast, enough of an opening for her to rip the Torch from my hand. The eyeless stop. I feel normal instantly, never wanting to touch the thing again, and realizing I absolutely have to.
The closest eyeless is only ten feet away, swelling and shrinking with each breath, claws half buried in the dirt. It’s coiled up to launch at me. The milky skin is almost translucent, showing the sharp tendons and muscle fibers underneath. Right before it leaps, I slap the medallion on my chest and the eyeless rears up and spins around, confused and unsteady, suddenly drunk.
“One charge!” I shout. One or two left, if we’re lucky.
I make another grab for the Torch, even get my fingers on it, but Nina snaps her head forward and head-butts me full in the face. My feet leave the ground and my vision fuzzes, and warm blood pours from my nose and over my lips.
I hit the dirt and the pain disappears. The lights go out.
And reappear the next second. The word No is on my mind. She can’t have it. Someone needs to step in and take it. I blink and sit up, gritting my teeth against the throb in my face and body. The eyeless flow away from us in a stampede, heading back in the direction we came.
Back toward the city and the Black. They ignore us now. In a few minutes they’ll be gone and we’ll be stuck here, miles and miles from anything. This can’t be it. This is supposed to end another way.
My vision clears in time to see Nina getting into the Humvee with the Torch. I stand up only to get bowled over by an eyeless trying to catch up with its pack. It’s like being tackled by a five-foot-tall spider. I hear a ting and see two of the scales on my suit pop off and fly away, victims of eyeless claws. Then it’s gone, galloping with the others. It happens so fast I don’t have time to be afraid, barely enough time to get an arm in front of my throbbing face.
The Humvee is already tearing toward the winding road on the valley wall. I spare a look for the others.
Sophia and Gane are missing. Peter is helping Rhys out of the hole, back turned. Good. I don’t want to say good-bye, or hear his protests. Noble stands over the hacked corpse of an eyeless, blood dripping off his chin.
In the distance, the Humvee reaches the bottom of the road and begins the long climb.
I sprint toward the wall we first descended, leaving the others in the center of the valley. All that matters is stopping Nina. Our world depends on it.
I try to judge if I can make it to the top of the valley before her, but it’s too close to tell. The road curves back and forth up the wall maybe twelve times, close to a quarter mile on each straightaway, followed by a hairpin turn that sends Nina back the other way. While I have to climb in a straight line.
“Suck it up, Miranda,” Noah says.
Normally that would annoy me. He’s been gone for the hard parts but returns with sage advice.
I ignore him, but he’s right.
I suck it up and climb.
I don’t see the eyeless until I’m on top of it. It springs out from behind a rock, and for a second I think I’m dead. I’m near the top of the valley wall with no place to run. This thing stayed behind and now it’s going to kill me. But its lower half is shattered, victim to the stampede. It has to drag its legs along like dead weight. The claws work fine, though. They swipe at my throat from above and tear more scales from my armor, shredding the chain holding my medallion. My balance is gone. I grab for a handhold but touch air, and then I’m falling from hundreds of feet up.
Thinking, What a terrible way to die.
The wind howls louder as I pick up speed. Noah doesn’t speak, but his fear floods my mind. He gives me his, and I give him mine, and, in a way, we hold each other.
There are worse ways to die.
I shut my eyes and wonder if I have a soul.
Instead of dropping faster, I begin to slow.
The wind isn’t rushing in my ears; gentle hands seem to break my fall, but I don’t open my eyes, not yet.
Not until I stop.
In midair, halfway down the valley wall. The feeling on my skin is familiar. At the top of the wall, Gane floats a few feet in front of the edge, arm out and palm down, like I’m a marionette a hundred feet below him.
Slowly, I begin to rise.
“That was fun,” Noah says.
Oh my God, is all I can reply.
Gane probably didn’t save me because he likes me. The way he’s floating now, I assume he levitated up the side of the valley to stop Nina, since the Humvee will come out right there at the top. The wound on his head bleeds down his face. His eyes hold not anger, but determination.
“Miranda!” Peter shouts below me.
I twist my head around as my ascent quickens. Peter and Rhys stand at the base of the wall I’m floating up. Noble and Sophia hobble along behind them, helping each other stay upright. The Humvee is nearly to the top now, careening around a dusty turn at the far end, the diesel engine filling the valley with its clatter. It’ll pass by so close. Be ready, I think. Fling her off the road. I want it so badly.
I reach the top, and Gane sets me down lightly near the edge. His black hair is thick with dirt and dripping sweat. I can feel the heat pouring off the power pack under his vest. Behind him, our horses haven’t fled from the eyeless exodus. Looking closer, I can tell it’s because Gane has them rooted in place. They’re rigid, but with terrified eyes, white and rolling. They’re itching to escape.
“She told me I would have the Torch,” he says, grim-faced. “I didn’t believe her, but I thought I could take it.”
I dust myself off and check for broken bones. I squeeze my nose with my thumb and forefinger; it aches, but seems whole. “What other lies did she tell you?” I say.
“That she would take them to one of the empty worlds. To banish them.”
“Did you believe her? Do you?”
His gaze falls, and he clenches his jaw. “No. But if I had the Torch I knew I could do it myself.”
“Then help me. Help me stop her.”
He nods. “But what of the eyeless?”
“Once I gain control of the Torch, I promise to take them to one of the empty worlds.”
The Humvee is getting closer.
“I won’t be betrayed twice. When we get to her, I wield the Torch.”
“Where else would I want to take them? I’m fighting her.”
“I don’t care.”
Not like I have a choice. And I
believe Gane. He wouldn’t have saved me otherwise.
Nina rounds the last bend, heading right for us, rising all the while.
“Do you agree?” he says without looking at me.
“Yes.”
She’s a few hundred feet away now. The engine screams, amplified by the valley wall next to it.
“I have a favor. One favor.” With Gane in one piece and fully aware this time, we can take care of Nina. So I need to protect the others, even if they’ll hate me for it.
“What is it?” he says.
“If she gets past us, keep the others from following. We can handle this alone.” I appeal to his hubris. “It’s just one girl, two of us, and you know who the enemy is now.”
“Fine.”
The Humvee skids around a huge boulder in the path, kicking up rooster tails of dirt and sand. Gane reaches out with both hands and the front wheels come off the ground, then slam back down. The Humvee turns sideways even though the wheels are still pointed straight.
“Too heavy!” he gasps. “Too fast!” Gane’s last attempt is to throw it over the side; the outer wheels scrabble at the edge, but Nina jerks the wheel and keeps it on the road. I catch a glimpse of her in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel and one on the Torch. She blows past us in a roar of dust and hot exhaust.
Axela twitches under me when I jump on. “Release us!” I tell Gane.
He does, and Axela almost bucks me off. She spins in a circle, hooves stamping the ground. “Easy, girl, easy!” I pat her flank and she calms, just slightly.
“You coming?” I point to the nearest horse.
Gane climbs on, and, true to his word, he releases the other horses. Axela and I almost get plowed over as they take off in a panicked stampede. Gane keeps his horse under control. It’s a long walk back to the Verge for the others, but a small price to pay for their safety.
Nina’s Humvee is on flat ground now, past where the hills end. Beyond her, I see a moving white blanket on the horizon—thousands of eyeless at her command. Something catches my eye to the north—another blanket, just as large. To the south is another, larger yet. There have to be tens of thousands of eyeless, all of them responding to the Torch’s call.