The Cyber Chronicles 02: Death Zone

by T C Southwell

  Chapter Six

  The following day, Sabre and Tassin pushed on. Sabre slashed at the undergrowth with unnecessary savagery, she thought. They crossed several streams, and refilled the water skins each time. Tassin picked exotic blossoms and arranged them in her hair to amuse herself. Sabre stopped to rest every so often, and eyed her girlish adornments with a marked lack of enthusiasm. In the afternoon, they came to a river, and Tassin stared at the expanse of brown water in horror, then glanced at Sabre.

  "What are we going to do?"

  "Cross it."

  "How? I cannot swim."

  He smiled without humour. "Somehow I didn't think you could, in spite of being a warrior queen." He wiped the sweat from his brow. "We'll find a bridge, or a shallow spot."

  Sabre led her upstream along the riverbank, where the undergrowth was thinner. Two hours later, they found a tree fallen across the spate. Sabre climbed onto the broad trunk and walked across, then came back, smiling.

  "There you are; a bridge."

  Tassin stared at the slippery-looking log. "What if I slip?"

  Sabre's smile faded as he jumped down and leant against the trunk. "You won't slip. If you do, I'll just have to fish you out, won't I?"

  "It's not safe. There must be a better way."

  "Maybe, maybe not. But we have to cross the river, and this is a perfectly good way to do it." He flashed her a mocking smile. "Don't be scared, I won't let you drown if you fall in."

  Tassin drew herself up. "I am not afraid! There could be a bridge further upstream. You said that there might be civilisation here."

  "I said there might be some on the other side of the jungle. This is the middle of the jungle; no civilised person would live here."

  She frowned at the log. "But if I fall..."

  He straightened, easing his back. "Don't fall."

  Goaded by his mockery, she put aside her fears and climbed onto the log with his help, clinging to it. Sabre dumped the pack and climbed up beside her.

  "Don't look down. Pretend that there's solid ground under it." He walked out over the river, then came back and held out his hand. "Here, take my hand and look at me."

  Tassin gripped his hand and rose unsteadily to her feet, her gaze fixed on his chest. Sabre edged across the log, his hand a solid support. The tree had been there a long time, and lichen covered the aged wood. Step by step, she moved out over the river, aware of its rushing, sucking sound below her, just waiting for her to fall into its wet clutches. She concentrated on easing her feet across the slick surface, leaning on his hand.

  Sabre moved back as she advanced, not pulling her along, but her nervousness increased as they moved out over the swirling brown torrent. Although she did not look down, she could sense the river beneath her like a cold, brooding presence. She longed to grab Sabre and hang on, but controlled her panic with an effort. The lichen grew wetter as they neared the middle of the log, and its squelching undermined what little confidence she had in the safety of her footing. As if her pessimism prompted fate, her foot slipped. Tassin jerked in a panic-stricken bid to right herself as she lost her balance, wrenching her hand from Sabre's grip with the unexpected action. He made a grab for her, but the treacherous footing prevented him from lunging after her, and he teetered. With a scream, she plunged into the brown water.

  Tassin shut her eyes and mouth as the river closed over her head. It rushed into her nose, and she thrashed in panic. Strong currents spun her around, and sunken branches tore at her clothes. Her lungs, emptied by her scream, burnt for the air above that she could not reach. She clawed at the water, her panic increasing as she failed to find purchase on the liquid. The cold river embraced her, pulling her down, and her skirts tangled with her legs as the current buffeted her. It dragged her along the rocky bottom, bruising her on submerged trees whose slimy branches clawed at her. Icy terror gripped her heart, and the overpowering urge to inhale hammered at her brain. The rushing river's song became a roaring in her ears, and she flailed.

  Strong hands gripped her dress and lifted her towards the surface. She grabbed Sabre and pulled herself up his arms, desperate for air. Her head broke the surface, and she gasped in a great lungful with a whoop. The water lapped at her chin, threatening to engulf her again, and she tried to climb onto Sabre's head. He sank, and the terrifying water closed over her again. The cyber pulled free of her clutching hands and turned her away from him, sliding an arm around her neck. She fought him in a blind panic, thrashing. With a powerful surge, they shot to the surface. Tassin gasped and spluttered. Her hair was plastered to her face, adding to her hysteria. His arm was like an iron bar across her throat, and she struggled to turn and grab him, the only solid thing in this frightening liquid world.

  "Relax, or you'll drown us both," he said.

  Tassin barely registered his words. Terror overwhelmed her, and she thrashed, splashing her face, which panicked her more. She twisted and gripped his shoulders, pulling herself up. Once more he went under, and she sank with a strangled scream as the water washed over her again. Her hands found his head, and she pushed upwards, causing him to sink further. He grabbed her wrists and surged past her to the surface, then she was yanked upwards. Gasping, she struggled to free her wrists from his vice-like grip.

  "Stop it, Tassin!"

  Sabre pulled her into the neck hold again. Still she splashed and struggled, water going up her nose and into her eyes. He dragged her through the swirling current, then released her throat and allowed her to turn and grip his shoulders. His arm slid around her waist, and he lifted her, using branches to pull himself up the bank with his free hand. Tassin slipped and scrambled beside him, but it was his arm that drew her up the bank.

  When they reached level ground, he stopped and let her to sink down with a squelch of sopping skirts. Water streamed from her hair, and she wiped it from her stinging eyes with shaking hands, her nose burning. She looked up to find Sabre crouched next to her, looking concerned.

  "Are you all right?"

  Tassin nodded, pushed back her hair and wrung the water out with studied composure. How many times had he asked her that, she wondered. Every time he had rescued her, which seemed like a lot, although she could not recall how many, exactly. She shivered, her teeth chattering. Sabre knelt within reach, and without thinking, she turned and embraced him. He tensed in apparent surprise or unease, then held her and patted her back.

  "It's okay, you're safe." He comforted her in an awkward, embarrassed fashion for a few minutes, then disentangled himself and took her hands, studying her. "Feeling better?"

  Tassin longed to tell him that she would feel a lot better if he held her for at least an hour, but decided that he might find the idea repellent, as he apparently found her embrace. At her nod, he rose and vanished into the jungle, leaving her cold and forlorn. She gazed after him with a mixture of longing and sadness. He returned with the packs and draped a blanket around her shoulders. She wrapped herself in it, rocking and shivering. Sabre gathered wood and built a fire, which helped to warm her, but her sodden dress clung coldly to her.

  "You've got to get out of those wet clothes," he said.

  Again she nodded, her teeth clenched to stop them chattering. Despite the jungle's warmth, the river water had chilled her to the core, and shock made it worse. Sabre shook out another blanket and held it up between them.

  "Take them off and wrap yourself in the blanket."

  Tassin's hands shook as she unbuttoned the faded pink dress. It stuck to her, and she had to peel it off, glancing at the blanket as parts of her became exposed, but Sabre held it high. When the dress and her slip were a soggy pile at her feet, she wrapped the blanket around herself and sat down again.

  "All right, I have finished."

  Sabre dropped the blanket and picked up her clothes, wrung them out and hung them over a branch. Tassin eyed him as he crouched by the fire again, feeding it. Water still dripped from him, yet he was not shivering, and she resented his immunity.

&nb
sp; "Do you never feel the cold at all?" she demanded.

  He smiled at the fire. "Not really. But I'm not suffering from shock either. The water holds no fear for me, because I can swim, although you nearly drowned me as well."

  A twinge of shame sharpened her tongue. "I thought you were the great cyber, who can do anything."

  "Not quite. Cybers are not the greatest swimmers. Twelve kilos of extra weight does tend to cramp our style in water. Your efforts to climb onto my head didn't help, either."

  "I was drowning!"

  "I know. I'm not blaming you."

  Tassin's shame turned to self-righteousness. "I said I would slip."

  "Yup, you sure did." He shook his head in mild reproof. "You're a pessimistic person. Pessimism breeds fatalism, and fatalism causes loss of confidence, which creates nervousness, and that causes accidents. I could walk up and down that log all day and not fall off, because I'm confident, but you couldn't even cross it once."

  Tassin stared into the fire. "It was slippery."

  "There you go again. That log was easily half a metre wide. A herd of horses could have crossed it, but you just had to slip, because you were afraid of slipping, and convinced yourself that you would." He prodded the fire with a stick. "It's cause and effect. If there hadn't been a river under that log, you would have skipped along it. But because there was danger under it, you got tense, scared, and you made an error of judgement."

  Tassin raised her eyes to his face. "So you're saying that if I had not been scared of falling, I would not have?"

  "Exactly. I'll prove it to you. The next time we come to a fallen tree, you walk along it and see how easy it is when there's no danger."

  "And if I still fall off?"

  He shrugged. "Then you're just plain clumsy."

  Tassin lowered her gaze to the fire once more. She looked subdued, as if the drenching had quenched some of her spirit. Sabre prodded the fire again, remembering his dip.

  Water was not his favourite element; he preferred dry land. The extra twelve kilos was only partially offset by his increased lung capacity and strength. A cyber was a not a strong swimmer, and dragging a struggling girl from the water had proven awkward. He had considered rendering her unconscious with a neck pinch, but the prospect of her verbal retaliation had daunted him. The tongue lashing he would have received for harming a queen would have been severe, he surmised, although technically it was not really harm, since it did not injure her. Even so, he had been surprised that she had not berated him for making her walk across the log, or being tardy in his rescue. Perhaps she was mellowing.

  When Sabre was dry, he left to hunt, and returned with a buck that he cleaned and cooked as usual. Tassin stared into the fire until the food was ready, unable to look at him. The light faded as the sun sank beyond the trees, and croaking frogs and singing crickets replaced the daytime racket of bird calls and chirring caracans. Her brush with death had engendered a strong sense of inadequacy, which he had compounded by pointing out her failings.

  After the meal she lay down, exhausted by her ordeal. Sabre poked sticks into the fire and waved them in the air to create glowing patterns, and Tassin watched him with drooping eyes. She could remember doing that as a child, but the novelty had worn off long ago. Sabre did it with the innocent fascination of one who has never been able to indulge in such petty activities before.

  A surge of pity went through her as she thought about the cruelties to which he had been subjected. Tears stung her eyes as he twirled two glowing sticks and watched the circles and figure-of-eights they formed in the air with obvious delight. At the same time, she wanted to laugh at his childish antics, and the bittersweet mixture of emotions confused her.

  How strange, she mused, that she should feel so safe in his company, so certain that he would never do her harm. She owed her life to this strange, mutilated man whose gentleness was utterly at odds with his lethal skills and strength. She trusted him more than she had ever done another, yet she hardly knew him. Still pondering, she drifted off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that he was nearby.

  An hour after dawn, Tassin donned her damp clothes, and they continued through the jungle. The trees became bigger and the undergrowth thinned, but the insects grew more prolific. Sabre warned Tassin to check herself for leeches, especially her legs. She shuddered at the thought of little beasts sucking her blood, and, when she found one, he sliced off its body, leaving the head to drop off by itself. The scope of his knowledge astounded her afresh. He seemed to know a solution to every problem and a cure for every situation.

  They walked for two days, and spent the nights under fallen trees or between massive buttress roots, using the petticoats to keep off the dew and unwelcome droppings from above. Tassin was horrified by the variety of things that fell from the trees, either by accident or design. Huge spiders, lizards, beetles, rotten fruit, bird and animal dung, seeds, nuts, leaves, branches, bits of bark and flowers rained down. For a time, a troop of monkeys followed them above, pelted them with fruit and dung and shrieked with what sounded oddly like laughter.

  The jungle teemed with screeching, honking, hooting, chirping animals. At night droves of insects took over, filling the darkness with their mating songs, and hosts of frogs held the endless chorus.

  Gearn stared at the log with dawning horror as the wolf trotted across it, then back again, as if to prove how easy it was. The trail led here, which meant that the warrior mage had used the log to cross the river. The tree trunk looked old and slippery, its surface mottled with lichen and fungi. He slid from his horse and turned to look at Murdor, who leant against a tree. The gladiator looked smug, as if he was laughing inwardly at some private joke. Gearn frowned, resenting the giant's lack of respect.

  "My horse will not cross that."

  The gladiator shrugged. "Then you'll just 'ave to walk, like the rest of us."

  The mage grunted, staring at the log again. Obviously Murdor was pleased that Gearn would now be afoot, as he was. The man's smugness annoyed him, like an itch he could not scratch. Gearn reflected that he could not have chosen worse travelling companions than a coarse ruffian and a grinning wolf. Added to that, the journey's discomfort and the raw patches on his rear combined to make him most disagreeable.

  Much as he wished for one, he had no spell to help him here. Even if he shrouded the log in an illusion to fool the horse into trying to cross it, the animal would only fall off. He sighed. They were not far behind the warrior mage now. Unsaddling the horse, he turned it loose to forage and hid the tack in a hollow tree. When he returned, he would recapture the beast and ride it back, for he had no intention of walking across the desert.

  Gearn climbed onto the log and tottered across it, waving his arms to keep his balance on the treacherous surface. Murdor padded after him, smiling as the rotten wood creaked under his weight. Gearn jumped down to safety, dismayed to find himself facing a wall of foliage and vines. The wolf sniffed around, then sat and stared at him. Gearn looked back at Murdor, who gazed around, picking his nose. The trail ended here. The warrior mage and the Queen had walked onto the log, but not off it, which could only mean that they had disembarked in the middle of it.

  Gearn scowled at the muddy torrent. Did the warrior mage know that he was being followed? He shook his head. No, it could only have been an accident, which meant that they had been swept down river, and, if they had survived, that was where they would be. Torrian would not be pleased if the Queen was dead, but he could hardly blame Gearn for that. Turning to the gladiator, Gearn gestured at the river.

  "It seems that they fell off the log, Murdor. We will have to look down river. I shall need you to clear a path."

  The giant smiled and unsheathed his sword. It seemed that after weeks of tedium, he was glad use his strength, even if only to clear a path.

  Sabre was relieved when the jungle gave way to a forest of tall slender trees whose leafy branches formed a green roof, its floor carpeted with golden-brown leaves. The insects were l
ess bothersome, and it grew cooler, which was pleasant after the humid tropical heat. He sheathed the sword, glad to give his arms a rest. The soft trilling of birds and the occasional rustle of a fleeing animal replaced the jungle's din. Tassin walked beside him, and her smile reflected her appreciation of the new landscape. Their conversation was desultory, since he was in a rather terse mood.

  The cyber's scanners picked up the life signs of seven humans ahead, and Sabre stopped. "There are people ahead."

  She turned to him. "At last! I thought we would never find civilisation in this stinking country."

  He raised his brows. "I didn't say they were civilised."

  Tassin snorted. "Well, let's find out who they are."

  "We will, but I think we should be a little cautious. You stay here, and I'll go and take a look first."

  She frowned. "I want to come too."

  "They could be savages. I'm only thinking of your safety."

  "I am coming, you might need help."

  Sabre gritted his teeth, wishing that he could tie her to a tree and gag her until he returned, but he had no rope. "Remember what happened the last time you tried to help?"

  "Yes, you got all huffy and left me behind to be bitten by a snake."

  Sabre shot her a surprised look, unable to refute her statement, although that was not what he had meant, of course. Tassin's glare dared him to deny it. Instead he said, "I want to move very quietly, so I can get a look at them without them being aware of me."

  She shrugged. "All right."

  Sabre frowned at her, then turned and walked on. Of all the dumb, stubborn, mule-headed females in the world, he had to get stuck with the prize-winner. He cursed under his breath. As they drew nearer to the people, who were moving across their path, he slowed, wary of twigs and rustling leaves, but Tassin continued to tramp through the fallen foliage. He winced and turned to her.