by K A Riley
“I do.”
Sara tugs on my other sleeve. “You trust this guy?”
I look back into Matholook’s happy-sad, mesmerizing eyes.
Who are you, really?
“So…you just happened to show up here?” I ask him out loud.
“What can I say?” He gives me a knowing, playful wink and flicks his thumb back and forth between us. “You and me…we’re inevitable.”
Libra leans in, her lips nearly grazing my ear. “Is this the one who made you feel right?”
“Um…”
“Thought so,” she whispers through a breathy chuckle.
Arlo limps over to us, his face buried in shadow. “I think maybe we should go with him.”
“We’re fine on our own.” I snap. “Inevitable or not, I don’t need a savior.”
Matholook thrusts his hand out once again. “Then…how about a friend?”
Ignacio shoulders his way between me and Arlo and clamps Matholook’s hand in his own. “Sounds good right about now.”
Her eyes ping-ponging between Matholook and the top of the practically vertical cliff we just plunged down, Mattea nods her vigorous agreement. “He’s right about one thing,” she calls out over the growing rumble in the air and the vibrations quaking through the ground, “something is on its way, and I doubt they’re friendly. I say we get the frack out of here!”
With a gurgle-craw from high above, Haida announces her agreement.
“Ah,” Matholook beams, his eyes flashing skyward before landing back on mine. “We’ve got a consensus. Democracy in action! Follow me!”
Without waiting for any more discussion or debate, he bolts along the rocky ravine with the six of us pounding along behind him.
I don’t know if we can trust him. But one thing we can be sure of, if he’s telling the truth about there being more Sentinels on their way, going with him is bound to be better than falling back into the hands of Epic and his lunatic confederation of tyrannical techno-geneticists.
With the distant rumble of the Sentinels’ jeeps, bikes, and dune-buggies coming closer and closer from somewhere high above and behind us, we bolt along the dry, winding canyon.
After a few hundred yards of skipping through what seems to be a very old and very dry riverbed, Matholook cuts hard to one side and scrambles on all fours up a steep escarpment.
We follow him, kicking up clouds of hot dust as we spill out onto a flat stretch of land between rolling hills of waist-high, camel-colored grass.
The sun is high and hot. The dry air rising off the fields of sand and stone burns into my lungs until it’s next to impossible to breathe.
The others are panting, too, gasping for breath and dragging the backs of their hands across their sweat-soaked foreheads to keep the sting of salt and the stickiness of blood from their eyes.
Overhead, the mountains loom, teasing us with the safety of our Academy at the top and the impossibility of getting there any time soon.
Twenty feet ahead now, Matholook doesn’t seem to be having much trouble at all. Sprinting over the flat parts of a plateau and skipping over the rockier sections, he launches himself over a jagged crevasse in the ground before darting through a cluster of towering boulders rising up from the crimson ground like the world’s biggest bowling pins.
“Come on!” he barks, his hand waving us on in a bout of frantic impatience. “We’ve got to go faster!”
Sure. Easy for you to say. You weren’t just locked in an underground bunker by a trio of villainous psychopaths.
Gathering every ounce of strength I’ve got left, I follow him as fast as I can with the other five members of my Cohort thumping along behind me.
Haida Gwaii must still be overhead somewhere and close by because I feel a surge of energy and speed blast its way through my body.
I can’t always control when the connection happens, but I’m always happy when it does. Especially at times like this when I really need the boost.
With my Cohort struggling and lagging behind, I just wish I could share it.
Haida Gwaii’s voice pings in my head:
~ Someday, you will.
I try to reach back to her, but the connection fizzles, and I wind up exhausted and fighting against the sting of lactic acid build-up in my muscles.
It’s not fair. Kress and Render are practically a single unit, working in total harmony at all times. Meanwhile, after five years of training, my bond with Haida remains patchy at best.
“Come on!” Matholook urges as we chug along, desperate to put as much distance as possible between us and any Sanctum Sentinels who might be on our trail.
I keep looking back, half-expecting to see a second wave of them thundering up from behind.
But so far, it’s just us.
After another twenty minutes of scrambling along a narrow trail and then through a field of crisp, waist-high grass, we grind to a stop in a natural clearing filled with a cluster of sun-bleached animal bones and ankle-deep clumps of ash, all surrounded by an interlocking ring of fallen trees.
Matholook leaps up onto one of the tree trunks and peers off into the distance. Cupping his hands around his eyes, he scans the flats and the foothills behind us while the rest of us lean over, our hands on our knees as we struggle to catch our breath.
At last, Matholook hops down and brushes dirt from his shoulders and arms. “We’re safe.”
“That’s great,” I pant.
Unless you count the fact that we just got led to safety by a boy whose entire cult—and that’s literally what they call themselves—is devoted to recruiting those they can trick and killing those they can’t.
41
Enemies
Setting my doubts aside for the moment, I continue to trudge along next to Matholook with the rest of my Cohort nervous and clustered in a shoulder-to-shoulder bunch behind me.
Matholook leads us up a hill and deeper into the woods until it becomes pretty clear that he’s as lost as we are.
“Where’s Trax when we need him?” I groan as we weave through a dense section of leaning and splintered trees.
Matholook gives me a side-eyed look. “Trax?”
“He’s an Emergent. Like us.”
“Oh, right. The boy with the sister who was always writing and drawing? I remember him from when you came to New Haleck all those years ago. Quiet, shy kid, right?”
“That’s the one.”
Only not so quiet anymore and not so shy.
Huffing, Libra clambers over a range of steep, uneven terrain and strides alongside me and Matholook. “Trax can find his way through unfamiliar territory like this.”
Matholook peels back a curtain of dry vines hanging from a partially uprooted tree and ducks through. “I should know my way around better, but the truth is, we don’t make it a habit of leaving New Haleck. Too many ways to get killed out here.”
We hike along for a few more minutes, up some old trails and over what’s left of some very old, very rusty railroad tracks.
The remnants of a wood and steel bridge sit far below on the rocky floor of a steep canyon.
“We can’t cross here,” Matholook tells us as he continues leading the way along the edge of the canyon. “I’m sure we can get across farther along.”
He doesn’t sound sure in the slightest.
Mattea, usually cool under pressure, clears her throat three times and raises a shaky hand before asking, “Is it true that the Unsettled…”
“Eat people?” Matholook scoffs. “Not live ones.”
“Thanks,” Sara sneers. “That’s very reassuring.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t mind her,” I tell him as we duck and weave through a scraggly thicket of dry underbrush. “Sara doesn’t do humor.”
Matholook pushes a thin branch aside as we crouch under the thorny vines draped over it. “What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“Being an Emergent.” When no one answers right away—mostly
because we’re almost too out of breath to form words—Matholook adds, “I’m what your people call a ‘Typic,’ right? Just a normal, boring human being.”
“I don’t know about the human being part,” Libra huffs with a breathy laugh, “but you risked a lot back there to save us. I don’t get the sense that you’re boring or normal.”
Matholook says, “Thanks” as he clambers up a steep embankment and leans against a tree, his hands on his knees, as the rest of us scramble up to join him.
“He didn’t save us,” I protest, swinging around to stand face to face with Libra. “Arlo got us away from the Unsettled. Sara and Ignacio got us out of Epic’s little underground prison-lab. You and Mattea got us away from the Sentinels. And we’d have been just fine and found our own way after that.”
Libra beams and throws her arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a very tight, very unwelcome embrace. “Aw! You love me, don’t you?”
“Sure,” I smile back. “If by ‘love,’ you mean that I barely tolerate you and really wish you would stop hugging me.”
Libra drops her arms, kicks at a small stone on the ground, and pretends to be mortally wounded by my rejection of her before breaking into a happy chuckle. “Come on. Let’s see where we are.”
From our elevated perch, we can easily see out over the distant tree line, down to the foothills and out to the expanse of snaking chasms and open, rocky desert far below.
Ignacio remarks on how high up we are. “I didn’t even realize we were climbing so much.”
“Well,” Mattea reminds him. “It is a mountain. It’s pretty hard to get to the top of one of these things without climbing.”
Ignacio manages to squeeze out a laugh, even though, like the rest of us, he’s clearly feeling the combination of fatigue and pain from the whole running-for-our-lives thing.
As high up as we’ve come, we’re still hours away from getting to the Academy. And that’s if we don’t get followed, caught, or killed along the way.
There are no roads or paths around, which is good because it means we’re not likely to be tracked down by anyone in a motorized vehicle. But it also means having to carve our own meandering path through some pretty rough landscape. Because of a few impassable rock formations and a couple of wide gullies, it seems like we spend half our time going back down the mountain.
I tell my Cohort I remember reading about some guy in a myth who had to keep rolling a big rock up a hill only to have it roll back down over and over again for all eternity. None of us can remember the guy’s name, but Sara asks how come he didn’t just kill himself.
“That’s the real torture,” Arlo tells her. “I think he was already dead.”
Sara glares at Arlo for a second, and I think he’s going to say something snippy to him, but she just grunts and keeps walking.
A cloud of anxiety seems ready to engulf us. We’re lost, exhausted, possibly being hunted, and we could still have a whole host of problems waiting for us back at the Academy. So it’s no wonder everyone’s a little on edge.
If we could find our way to one of the old mining tunnels, maybe we’d have a chance. But without Trax and with no clue about where the tunnels are from here, we’re in more than a bit of trouble.
“What now?” Ignacio asks after we’ve all taken another minute to catch our breath. “I don’t think anyone’s following us.”
Out of nowhere, Sara whips around toward me. Her jaw is clamped, and her face is tight and flushed with anger.
“You got us into this mess, Branwynne. How, exactly, do you plan on getting us out?”
Although I’m too stunned to respond, Libra and Ignacio step forward to form a protective wall in front of me.
“It’s not Branwynne’s fault,” Libra barks at Sara. “There was an intruder, and they took her raven. What did you expect her to do?”
I’m not used to Libra being anything but gushing and happy, so to see her with her back up throws me off a little.
Ignacio takes a small but still menacing step toward Sara. “Leave her alone. No one forced anyone to leave the Academy. We all agreed to come. Branwynne and Haida are connected. Branwynne did what she needed to do to save them both and to protect the Academy. Any of us would’ve done the same.”
Sara’s fingers curl into tight fists. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the Academy shouldn’t be protected. If Epic wants it so bad, why not let him have it? What does it matter to us?”
Now, it’s Mattea who steps forward, planting herself next to Sara.
“Sara’s got a point. But I think we’d all agree that getting back to the safety of the Academy is a better outcome than getting tortured by Epic, killed by the Sentinels or eaten by the Unsettled.”
We all stop and stare at Mattea. Her wide, brown eyes dart back and forth as she waits for our response.
Sara’s face and eyes soften, not a lot, but enough so we know she’s on board. Her fingers uncurl, and she shoots a side-eyed glare at Matholook.
“So, where to now, Mr. Savior?”
A voice in my head says, I can help.
I scan the sky overhead. “Haida Gwaii?”
I might not have the smooth and instant communication that Kress has with Render, but I do know the sound of my white raven’s voice as well as my own. I hop onto a flat-topped rock and swing my head from side to side as I try to reconnect with her.
Where are you?
~ Don’t go back. Not yet.
Why not?
~ Enemies.
What enemies?
~ The worst kind. The ones from within.
Within? Are we in danger?
~ Yes.
Haida’s voice crackles and fades, but the intention, the emotion, and the feelings of fear linger in my head.
“What is it?” Libra asks. “What did she say?”
“I couldn’t understand it all. But she doesn’t want us to go back to the Academy. Not yet.”
Sara smirks, but Mattea snaps around in a rage. “Is she crazy? We need to get out of here! We need to get to safety!”
“That’s her point. I don’t think the Academy is safe at the moment.”
Arlo gulps from deep within the shadow of his hood. “Cohort B. Are they…?”
I shake my head. “Haida doesn’t seem to be in panic mode. And I’m not sure if it’s the Academy that’s in trouble or if she’s warning us about something else. Or someone else between here and there.”
“The Sentinels? Epic and the Civillains?” Ignacio asks, looking more nervous than normal for him.
“I can’t tell. But it’s a reasonable possibility. We know Micah knows where the Academy is…”
“Which means Epic knows, which means they’ll try to cut us off,” Ignacio finishes. “Or worse—follow us and wait for us to lead them right through the Academy’s front door.”
“What about Kress and the others?” Arlo asks. “Maybe we can hide out until they get back?”
“Except we don’t have supplies, and we don’t know when they’ll be back. It could be hours. Or days. Or longer.”
Mattea bites her lip. “Or they could be in as much trouble as we are.”
“There are a lot of things I’m worried about,” I tell her. “Kress and her Conspiracy getting into trouble they can’t get out of isn’t one of them.”
“Branwynne’s right,” Libra says. “Kress can take care of herself. If the Academy’s not in immediate danger, then the only thing we have to worry about is us.”
“And the enemies Haida says are out there,” I remind her.
“Then we don’t have a choice,” Matholook declares. “You’ll have to come with me.”
Mattea frowns. “Come with you where?”
“Back home to New Haleck.”
“Forget it,” I tell him with as much finality as possible.
“Unless you’d rather stay out here and get tracked down by Epic’s Sentinels.”
“I’m not going back to a town that’s two feet from the one we just esc
aped from.”
“Sanctum may be close. But there’s no way Epic will look for you in New Haleck. He wouldn’t dare.”
Libra makes a dramatic show of stepping between me and Matholook. “Or maybe you’ll just turn us over to him to save yourself. After all, you’re still at war, right?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“And what about the other Devoted,” she asks. “What would they do?”
“There aren’t enough of them to do anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said it yourself. We’re at war. Literally. Most of the cult is off fighting the Unsettled a hundred miles from here.”
In the space of Matholook’s half-second pause, a million scenarios flash through my mind. Most of them end up with me and my friends back in the clutches of Epic and his Civillains, imprisoned by the Devoted, or hacked to pieces and snacked on by the Unsettled.
All I wanted was to get Haida Gwaii back and maybe help protect the Academy in the process.
Instead, I just led my Cohort into the middle of a three-way war.
Nice going, Branwynne. So much for being a superhuman leader. Kress would be so proud.
I do a quick calculation in my head before swinging back to Matholook.
“You’re as lost as we are. Can you even get us to New Haleck?”
Matholook’s eyes dart upward to where Haida Gwaii is bouncing on wind thermals high above the tree line. “No. You’re right. I’m as lost as you are. But I bet the two of you can get us there.”
Nodding, I wince past a streak of pain in my head and connect with Haida, who confirms that she can get us from here to Matholook’s compound.
Okay. Take us to New Haleck. We’ll follow you. Just remember, we can’t fly!
Overhead, Haida clacks! and banks hard to the side, slicing through the air and screeching at us to follow her.
Arlo nudges me as he walks past. “Nice to have someone around with a bird’s eye view.”
Libra heaves a heavy sigh. “Here we go.”
“Hey, Sara,” Ignacio calls over his shoulder as we start our march back through the woods and along the steep slope of the mountain. “What do you call it when you escape from the lion’s den and decide to look for safety in a den of tigers?”