On they ride. The sun is low and the color of blood.
The canyon flutes northeast towards the Blue Mountains, into the high desert, for roughly eighty klicks, and the dust descends on the Riders, like fog. They ghost their way through.
The Riders disgorge from the cramped and narrow canyon into a deep valley. Huge purple mountains dwarf them, and the valley is cast in long shadow by the craggy, scratchy contour of the range. The Riders disperse and plunge their relentless bykes forward, storming into the violet shadows and the hanging dust, heedless of whatever lies beyond.
Adam surges up to the crest of a rise to gain perspective. Down the slope, somewhere down in the dirt-enshrouded valley, lies the first obstacle course. He stays up on the hillside, waiting for the dust to settle, away from the pack. He knows there’ll be a bottleneck at the entrance.
The Blackwater Trail might be called a race, but it’s a misleading word. Frank taught him that. Adam knows to take it easy on the first day. There will be times when speed is necessary, even essential. But there will also be times when speed is a hazard.
You gotta pace yourself.
He hasn’t traveled more than a few yards up the hill when behind him comes the sound of a byke chain and an exertion of breath. Adam rises off his saddle and turns quickly.
A Rider materializes from the gloom, caked head to foot in dust, half obscured in the haze.
“HOLD BACK!” Adam shouts, muffled into his helmet.
The spectral figure swerves and jerks away, but the movement is too sudden. His front wheel jars in the sand. The byke shudders and roars its disapproval and the Rider, arms windmilling, is flung from his seat. Adam is about to surge away when the fallen Rider’s byke crashes past him and comes to a thrashing stop. As he slinks out of the path of the dirt-churning machine, he notices the byke’s make. A Sunblazer. And he swings his head back to look for the Rider.
The skinny Rider—dazed but unhurt—stands and watches him.
Adam turns his byke and rides towards him, slow and steady. He comes to a standstill and shicks up his visor.
“You always ride like that?” he asks.
The shadowy Rider looks at him and pulls off his helmet. His eyes are big and blue.
Adam shakes his head. “How goes it, Nate?”
Nate shrugs. “Doin okay…till just then.”
Adam leans back in his saddle and casts about to see if there is any immediate threat to their position. Nothing. No feeling of anyone else approaching. They’re alone. For the moment anyway. The other Riders must be carving their way to the obstacle course somewhere in the dust below.
Adam jerks his thumb towards the course. “No point getting mixed up in all that. Not yet.”
“Booby-trapped, no doubt,” Nate says, helmet in the crook of his arm.
They listen to the muted shouts of the Riders far below.
Adam nods. “No doubt.”
He knows the way it works. Each course is rigged so a percentage of Riders fall. There are five of these man-made obstacle courses, or trials, with only the first and the last being obligatory. The rest are optional and placed at natural shortcuts. But choosing—or not choosing—can force a Rider into dangerous territory. The Valley of a Thousand Dead Sons, known for packs of ravenous wolves. The high desert plains where flesh-eaters are said to roam—Nakoda.
Adam looks at Nate. “Why’d you follow me?”
“Figure you’re safe.”
“Nobody’s safe.”
“That was rough back there,” Nate says after a pause. “Seen six Riders go down. One of ’em ain’t never gettin up again.”
Adam turns his wheel and puts a boot up on the byke’s crossbar. He looks over in the direction of the valley.
Did Sadie make it?
Of course she made it. No question.
Nate follows his gaze. Both stare down at the valley, but there isn’t much point. Neither can see a thing in the clouds of dust.
Nate retrieves his byke. He makes a cursory check of the mechanics and he frowns. Then he takes up his seat and slips his boots into the straps.
“Damn byke shoulda reacted sooner,” he says. “Must be busted.”
Adam watches him and offers no opinion.
“Damn byke,” Nate repeats. He looks at Adam. “Helluva start. See that GRUB take that Rider off the line? I hate GRUBs. They’re abominations.”
“Big word for a little guy.”
“Pa said that’s what they are.”
“They’re just machines.”
“Oh yeah? Your byke, she just a machine?”
“Bykes are different.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” He pauses. “Why are you racing, Nate?”
Nate squeezes and releases his brake. “Same as everybody,” he says, squinting at the hills. “Got nothin else. Don’t wanna die in the mines.”
“How many points you got?”
“None.”
“Yeah. Me either.”
The boys look at each other, then flick their eyes away and stare at the dust valley.
“Weren’t easy following,” Nate says. “You can ride.”
Adam removes his boot from the Longthorn’s crossbar. He pulls off his helmet, rests it on the seat in front of him. “All I know, I guess.”
“Reckon you’re the best?”
Adam thinks of a shadow flashing past him. A lithe form ahead. He sees himself going hard after him, swerving and skidding and leaping small rises that come at him fast. But Kane is too quick. He fades to a shadow ghost in the rising dust. Then disappears altogether.
“Yeah,” Adam says, touching his fingers to the back of his skull. “Sure. I’m the best.”
They watch a swirling eddy of dust curl away to reveal a patch of blue sky. In the valley, slanting shafts of suspended sunlight reveal the obstacle course. It has been carved into the heart of the valley. On each side of the course, glinting in the sun, are ten-yard-high razor-wire fences that run right up the hill to the mountain cliffs. There is no way round this first man-made trial. It’s the course or nothing.
Adam hauls out a map from his Race pack and flattens it out over his handlebars.
The Trail is marked by a dotted red line and maps a circular route, beginning and ending in Blackwater Canyon. It sets out in a northeasterly direction for a hundred klicks, then directly east for a further two hundred. After the Sawtooth range, it jags south, heading for the open plains, then east again and finally north towards El Diablo. Two thousand, five hundred klicks of pure Badland. Diamonds mark the four camps along the route and an X for each of the five obstacle courses.
It’s here—where the stakes are highest—that the Watchers gather in droves.
Adam looks up at the crest of a hill and sees them. A line of unmistakable white sails. Sun flares, dancing off telescope lenses.
Sail trykes eat up the sand. They ride faster than any dirt byke and they’re sturdy enough to carry seats over the two front wheels. Each sail tryke carries a pilot and two passenger Watchers. They travel the Trail with the Riders, keeping out of the way, taking notes, observing, feeding information back to the referees in Blackwater and up to the airships in the haze.
A sail tryke might be fast, but it can’t navigate the jumps and twists of the obstacle course. They’ll stay out of the action and they’ll never get into the fray, never lift a finger to help.
Adam looks away from them and searches the first course for Sadie on her Sandeater, but he can’t find her in the hanging dust and the chaos of bykes.
The course is dangerous—narrow and rutted—every ten lengths marred by a steep jump. The turns, sharp and vicious, are clogged with Riders jostling for position. Alone, in front of the hungry pack, a Rider on a white Stinger byke leaps and soars.
He rides with effortless mastery, at a pace that can’t be matched by those in his wake. He drives hard at a jump and sails clear, high into the air, up and up, as though an invisible line jerks him skyward. He flies right u
p and over the following jump, disappears in dust on the far side, only to reemerge seconds later, speeding low and fast—a stone, flung to the next turn.
“You see that?” Nate gasps. “That kid out front. That’s Levi Blood. He’s the one to beat.”
“He’s nothin,” Adam says, despising the edge in his voice.
He hears the distant crack of a slingshot. Sees another Rider fall.
Adam rolls the map and stuffs it into his Race pack. He stores both in the byke’s frame compartment, between his thighs. Then he kick-starts his motor.
Nate looks at him. “Thought you aimed to wait?”
Adam pulls on his helmet. “Changed my mind.”
He knows he should take it slow at first, conserve his energy, save his strength for the end. Stay alive. That’s all that matters in the first few days. But now he has to go like the wind. Now he has to run the gauntlet. Getting through the first obstacle course will require all his skills. He’ll need to be hyperaware, ready for anything, any trap, any sign of tampering or sabotage.
The Debriefer made it clear:
The Race has been designed to be anything but easy. It will be a test of your ability.
Down the slope they go—him and Nate—two Riders at the back of the pack.
Nate’s Sunblazer makes a grinding noise that doesn’t sound good. Adam is forced to rein in the Longthorn to keep from bursting away. And it bugs him. Staying alive is difficult enough without having to worry about a skinny kid with blue eyes and a knife in his belt.
He knows the smart choice. Ditch him. Ride out of sight and leave him to his fate. But he can’t do that. Besides, he’s impressed with Nate. To get through the mess of the start means the kid knows a thing or two about riding. That counts for something. Yet Adam can’t suppress a wish that he were riding with someone else. Someone he never expected to be running the Blackwater. Someone as beautiful as the blush of a red Medusa tree in the dust.
Sadie Blood.
—
Adam and Nate come careening into the course and find devastation. They rip past a figure, caught and twisted in the trackside wire; his torn clothes flutter and swirl in the wind. Another Rider they find wrapped round her byke, bloodied and broken, her head slung sideways.
She doesn’t move. She doesn’t make a sound.
Adam clenches his jaw and rides.
You have to commit, Adam. You see that jump coming, you put your head down. You go. You don’t stop. Not for nothin. You gotta keep trying. Never give up. Not ever.
—
The first jump is fifteen yards high. Adam guns down the slope, shoots up to the lip and whoosh…he’s airborne. At the apex of the leap, his heart flies to his throat. This is the moment he comes most alive. After the violence of a descent into a jump—after that epic rush when he sweeps up to the lip and gives gravity the finger—the grace of floating free. He is one with the byke and the byke is one with the air. This is why he rides—for this moment—the solitude of a jump. An in-between state, where the unknown lies on the other side, where anything is possible and nothing can touch him. Time divides into what came before and what lies after. The moment lasts. And then it folds.
He’s down the other side. Rubber hits gravel. Loose stones come rattling down after him and the byke clatters under his body. He sweeps into a turn that throws him high up a wall and spits him into a tight run rippled with quick jumps. The narrow channels and turns are terrifying and mesmeric.
Adam slots into a groove. The Longthorn rides with style, absorbing each shock with her lightweight frame and Sadie’s fine-tuned suspension. She rides like a dream.
He’s not alone on the track. He feels, rather than hears, Nate behind him.
Nate slipstreams him and they go hard and fast. As fast as they can with Nate’s lagging Sunblazer. Adam has eyes only for the track. It comes at him relentlessly.
Turn after turn.
Jump after jump.
No sign of traps. Not yet.
Adam rounds a sharp bend and he descends into a steep and furrowed part of the course. His senses are on fire. Every nerve in his body crackles. Every muscle is taut.
He’s in a narrow, V-shaped area, so narrow at the base it allows for the width of two side-by-side bykes only. Either side of him tower walls of earth.
No mistakes possible. No margin for error.
Here comes—by far—the steepest jump yet. A monster of a wall.
Adam accelerates hard. He knows it will require massive speed. He steels himself, flattens against the byke frame and guns the throttle. The byke swoops down the track and glides up to the top….
Boom! He’s high up in the air again—climbing to an incredible height. He lets go a whoop of pure delight into his helmet. For a moment, just a split second, he forgets who he is and what he’s doing. He floats away with the dust.
—
Adam pulls off his helmet and sits quietly on his byke. A restfulness flows through him. A sense of accomplishment, even smug satisfaction. He looks at the completed obstacle course and smiles. The high jumps and the crazy turns—all defeated.
He pats the side of the Longthorn. “We did good.”
“Hell, didn’t we!” a voice hoots next to him, breathing hard.
He turns. Nate grins at him and slaps his helmet. “Did you see that? We licked it!” He removes his helmet, throws it in the air and catches it. “Hoo-haa!”
Adam feels a small stab of resentment. “Blind luck if you ask me.”
But Nate won’t be brought down. His eyes dance. “You’re a damn fine Rider, Adam. You got yourself Voddenite balls.”
Adam looks at the kid with the freckles and the blue moon-eyes.
Nothin gets to this guy.
He looks away and he shakes his head. But he can’t help smiling. And soon the two boys find themselves sitting on their bykes in a hell-desert, laughing like crazy.
—
They saddle up again and ride through the day. They take turns on point, watching for traps and Riders. They ride through wide country, nothing but rock and desert scrub. They ride across a flint-strewn plain with wispy grass. Then tall cypress trees, shaped like rockets, impossibly green in the rock dirt. They see Riders scattered up ahead, each one churning a virgin line. A multitude of plumes drift to the sky.
They stay behind the pack. Biding their time. Riding with sun goggles, stowing their helmets in favor of less restrictive headgear. Nate’s Sunblazer makes a clanking noise that neither boy can figure or fix, and they pretend the sound is nothing more than a trick of the desert.
Their conversation turns to Sky-Base.
“Heard they got swimming pools,” Nate says, leaning back in his saddle, as far as the seat will allow. “Blue pools, warm as bathwater. They have it all.”
Adam watches a mini tornado swirl across the earth. “Yeah. I heard they got story screens—3-D holographic. You walk up into the story. Talk with the characters. Spit in their faces.”
Nate shakes his head. “I like the sound of that. Yessir. No working the mines or racing death tracks. Just sitting up there, watching all those story screens.”
“You and me both.”
“Got some weird customs too, though. Coming down here, watching us die.”
“Yeah, well. Nobody’s perfect.”
—
It’s dusk when it happens. When his guard drops and he allows their small success to get the better of him. Adam decides to open the throttle. They let their bykes stretch and growl on a vast bake of hard sand. They make up lost ground. Haul in other Riders and overtake them. Lose them in their dust. They blaze onwards, side by side, pushing Nate’s ailing byke to the limit.
Adam storms ahead and sees a jump coming. He calls Nate to tail him.
It’s nothing to speak of—a routine lip formed by summers of soil erosion and ceaseless wind—a jump made by the gods. Adam gets a creeping feeling suddenly, racing into the lip. But he ignores it. A wedge like this, carved out of wind and rock, is a gift.
He has to jump.
He leaps. He flies. And Nate blasts after.
It’s only coming down the other side that he sees the glint of gut-wire. But it’s too late. He’s committed to the drop.
The gut-wire is strung taut across the track, at waist height. His instinct, as soon as he sees it blinking in the sun, is to duck low, to go under, but something, some inner force, warns him. Ducking under a waist-high wire may present the soft flesh of his neck. All eventualities flash before him.
Flipped backwards, sent crashing into Nate.
Sliced and garroted.
Decapitated on day one.
His mind probes the gory possibilities. All in seconds. Split seconds.
He knows evasion is useless and so he takes the only decision worth taking. In midsweep down the slope, with the athletic agility of a circus performer, he somehow conspires to swing his feet up onto the narrow saddle, and then he lets go the handlebars—and he jumps, all in one fluid movement, without hesitation.
He flies up and forward in a pantomime of a perfected trick. Only this is no trick and there are no circus nets to save him.
Time slows. The air is jelly.
Adam feels a vibrating presence of someone. A feeling of being watched. He hears a voice, as real as if the person were right there.
Frank’s echo.
Roll, Adam. Pull in your shoulder and roll when you hit the dirt.
Weightless. That feeling midjump. The feeling underwater, when he slips through the cool darkness, suspended in a black void. He’s in the air again, riding a hot thermal. Far below, on the arid sands, a trail of black Riders kicks up plumes of dust. Insects, from above—an army of ants.
Frank stands over him. He towers upwards into the sun.
“Your angle was all wrong,” he says. “You lost focus. Gimme your hand.”
Adam blinks in the sunlight. He knows he’s dreaming, or remembering…or both. He knows it isn’t real, but he reaches for his brother’s hand anyway. His eyes swim. Blood streams from his grazed knees and elbows, from his nose and his lip.
He hears Frank’s voice. “On your feet. If you fall, you get right back on your byke.”
Adam mumbles something and his brother grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him.
Stone Rider Page 10