“Everyone not carrying the wooden boxes of ore, get ready to get out and scatter. The more spread out we are, the harder it'll be to get us. Those carrying the ore, get a good distance from the transporters, then run yourselves.” Kas had moved to the doorway at the back, and got quiet murmurs of confirmation in response.
“They're still following us.” Aidan angled his head as Garek came down to land.
But Garek had taken that as a given, and piloted them in, heard the scream of engines behind him when Dom overcompensated on power as they landed, both craft kicking up a massive swirl of golden dust.
“That's good,” he said.
“The dust?” Kas asked.
He nodded, caught Kas's eye and remembered he was talking to someone who called the earth Change.
“We could use this.” Garek couldn't help the surge of anticipation that rose up in him.
He shifted his gaze, saw Taya watching him, a look in her eyes that told him she'd seen his eagerness and was afraid for him.
“We obscure their view, you throw your spears,” he told her, and she gave a tight nod and moved out of his sight, into the back to help carry the ore out.
He powered down, opening the back door as he did so, and judging from the clatter of feet, there was a rush for the outside.
He opened both pilot doors as well, left them for Aidan and Kas and ran back, grabbed the side of one of the long boxes and heaved it up with a mix of men and women from Harven and West Lathor.
They ran down the ramp and followed those carrying the other boxes in front of them.
Garek twisted his head around and up, looking for the sky craft, but saw nothing until they set the boxes down.
He ripped the lid off his one, saw Lynal, his old competitor for Taya's affections, pull off another, and someone from Harven levered off the third.
“Those not running, look for the sky craft,” he ordered, because no one seemed to be heading off as Kas had ordered.
These were all former guards, he realized, or potential guards, men and women with strength and training they wanted to put to use as much as he did.
The dust was still swirling as Dom revved the engines, and the door hadn't opened yet.
Dom was too rattled maybe, or having some kind of trouble.
As he thought it, the back ramp dropped down, and the Kardanx streamed out in a tight group.
Some headed for him, others saw the Illy were scattering and did the same.
Two knelt on the ground, dust almost obscuring them, and touched their lips to the soil of Barit in thanks.
He used the swirling air, lifting the dust higher, and blanketed those running for cover with a dust cloud just above their heads.
Aidan and Kas had been looking up, standing beside the transporter, but then the dust got thicker, and he realized Kas was funneling more of it into the air. Both men moved closer to him, where there was still some visibility.
And then the sky raiders came.
He was an expert at spotting them in the sky, had spent more than a year of his life doing just that.
The glint of silver, the far off whine of sound.
Aidan heard it, too, cocked his head to one side, and Garek pointed.
Everyone looked up. Everyone except Taya. She bent down and took a spear from its water bath.
“If some of you are staying and can't call a Change, then your job is to hold spears for Taya, and hand her one when she needs it.”
Zek and Lynal nodded, scooped up a few spears each, and others did the same.
“You'll need to stay with me so I have access to the spears.” Taya spoke for the first time since they'd landed, and he was suddenly swamped by an emotion he couldn't describe, seeing her with a spear over her shoulder, in the tight-fitting clothes of a guard. “If you need to run for any reason--if they start using white lightning or if they're going to capture you--drop the spears so I have a chance of getting to them. The sky raiders won't go near them.”
Garek could see none wanted to admit to the idea of running away, but everyone nodded reluctantly.
“Did you tell Dom to keep the engines running?” Kas asked, as the transporter kept kicking up dust.
Garek shook his head. “I didn't tell him how to turn it off. But it's working for us.”
Kas gave a grin in response and even more dust rose up, which Garek flicked upward so it looked like a miniaturized sand storm.
“Don't waste too much energy,” Taya warned them, stepping close to him, close enough that he could reach out and run a hand down her back.
“It takes almost nothing at all, with us working together,” Kas told her, and Garek wondered if he'd understood that before. He usually worked alone, but Kas was right--with a combination of the two of them, he could do this all day without burning out. Either of them could have created the same effect by themselves, but with a considerably bigger drain on their reserves.
“They're coming in for a low swoop.” Aidan had kept his gaze skyward.
It was an intimidation tactic. The sight of the gleaming silver craft, so alien to everything on Barit, the roar of sound, the low pass.
It snapped Garek back to himself, and he called the Change fully, settled in to a place where the air was thick and syrupy and reached for the air around the sky craft diving toward them.
Usually he couldn't do this, because the sky raiders were after either people or goods, and that meant built-up areas. The time he'd brought the sky craft down, it had been just outside the walls of Gara, into a farmer's field.
He had the same freedom here. Actually, more.
Last time, he'd tried--and succeeded--in bringing the ship down in one piece for them to study. He had no such requirement now.
He felt the pilot try to pull up from his swoop, sensed the wobble as the sky raider fought his controls, could almost, almost taste the panic as the engines couldn't find enough power, and then hammered the air above the craft down like a fist, slamming it into the ground.
It crumpled in a scraping, shrieking cartwheel, getting smaller and more misshapen until it came to a steaming, groaning stop at least five hundred meters from them.
“One down,” he said with satisfaction as he drew back from the Change.
Kas was staring at him with his mouth open. “You've come a long way from when I trained you,” he said. “And I thought you were too strong for your own good then.”
Aidan was also watching him with a face that said a lot was going on under the surface. Only Taya looked at him with appreciation and wonder and a fierce satisfaction. She slid her arm around his waist and pulled him close.
It frustrated him, always had, that he had to hold back, not use his full ability, to make others more comfortable.
But Taya didn't want him to, and he reveled in the freedom that gave him.
“Headache?” she asked him, as he looked up once more, searching for the other two craft.
They'd be more cautious now.
He was almost certain they wouldn't understand how the craft had been brought down.
“No headache.” He kept his gaze up as he answered her. “I probably should have one, but not yet.”
She nodded. Hefted the spear on her shoulder and stepped a little away from him. “That them?” She pointed and he saw the tell-tale glint high in the sky.
“We need more dust cloud,” he said to Kas, and they both got to work again, billowing it up from where it had subsided when his attention had been elsewhere.
Clearly, Kas had been too focused on what he'd been doing to concentrate on it as well.
“I don't know my range,” Taya said, eyeing the second craft as it came in, higher than the first, more wary, but low enough to reach. The third stayed even higher, almost impossible to see.
Garek knew his range, though. He called his Change and reached again.
The pilot must have felt something, because the craft rolled away just as Garek hammered down. He caught one side of the wing, though, flipping
the craft on its side, then flipped it again, so it was upside down, and then slammed again.
But this sky raider was more intuitive than the other one. He or she flipped back upright just before the craft hit the ground, and the pilot was able to skip it across the ground like a flat stone across water.
The crunch and screech of metal against the rocks and stones of the escarpment were clear, even over the engines of Dom's transporter. It hit something, probably a boulder, and began to spin.
When it came to a stop, its engines were still running.
“We need to shut it down.” Garek thought it was possible it could still fly.
He looked up again, caught a glimpse of the third craft hovering high above. Waiting.
“Let's go.” Taya's voice snapped his attention back to the ground. Her call hadn't been for him, it was for her spear carriers. They all started running toward the downed craft.
Garek hesitated. The first sky craft was a smoking, crumpled mess, and no matter what, it wasn't going anywhere. The second one still looked dangerous, but the third worried him.
The pilot must be watching, trying to work out what had gone wrong. And he or she wasn't going to make the same mistakes as the others.
Suddenly, the second craft lifted up.
The sounds coming from it told him it was in some trouble, there was a grating sound, but it got some height, hovered.
A flash of white blinded him. When he could see again, he blinked.
The spears were out of Lynal and Zek's hands, out of everyone's hands, floating in the air in a criss-cross pattern, and white lightning was dancing over the sky craft.
No one was down. No one.
The spears fell, except one, which flew into Taya's hand, and then she heaved it at the sky craft.
Garek reached for his Change, caught the spear, gave it extra power, and felt his Change mesh with Taya's for a moment, like he'd done with Kas. Complimenting her strength, as she complimented his.
The spear struck the front of the craft, piercing the window, and the whole craft dropped to the ground.
Taya did, too.
She'd burnt herself out.
But anyone could throw the spears physically. He realized now that's why Taya'd heaved it herself, she'd been trying to save her strength, but she'd been too late. It had run out.
He heard her call something to one of her helpers, saw Lynal run past her and leap up to the window, pull the spear out, and run back.
That was good.
He didn't think the sky craft was going anywhere, but it was better to have as much ammunition as they could get.
There was a sound above him, and with cold certainty, he knew he'd kept his attention off the third craft for too long.
He looked up, just as it came flying down toward him.
Chapter 43
She'd reached her limit.
Taya forced herself to her knees, took the spear Lynal had retrieved, and used it to help herself to her feet.
“I'm close to empty,” she told him. “But we can still use the spears, we just have to throw them.”
“That was quite a throw,” Lynal said.
She laughed. “That wasn't me. That was Garek.”
Lynal looked in Garek's direction, and his face went pale.
She turned, saw the third craft coming down, so fast . . .
Hefting the spear on her shoulder, she ran toward it. Garek was looking up, and she saw him blur a little, knew it was a level of Change she had yet to reach.
The sky craft flipped, but it righted itself and banked away, then came down with a scream of engines, the dust it blew up mingling with the dust Kas was still pumping into the air.
“Call your people, get them back in the transporters, and we will let you live.” The hissing voice of the pilot was everywhere, amplified in a way Taya didn't understand.
It felt like magic. She knew it wasn't, but it was frightening, all the same.
She reached Garek's side and wasn't surprised when he held out his hand for her spear.
She gave it to him, looked behind her, and waited until Zek got to her, took one of the three he was holding.
Garek didn't give any response to the pilot, didn't say anything. He simply threw the spear, making it spin as it arced up and angled down to the roof.
The sky craft reversed back, and the spear landed just in front, almost obscured by the sandstorm.
She handed Garek her new spear, grabbed another from Zek but before Garek could throw again, white lightning shot out of two small tubes at the front, the first time she'd seen where it came from.
The shots were aimed like a warning, flaring from right to left in front of them, but the screams were all too real as clusters of searing white crawled over four Kardanx who were crouched down between Dom's transporter and the one the Illy had used.
Before the screams had died away, Taya turn to Garek, sucked in a breath when she realized he wasn't there.
She searched, frantic, through the swirling dust, blinking against the grit in her eyes.
There.
He must have run, because he had almost reached the sky craft, and Aidan was beside him.
He ran ahead of Garek and then turned, crouching a little.
Garek ran full tilt at him, got boosted up, and she saw the spear leave his hand. Penetrate the front section of the craft.
He jumped down, ran back and grabbed the spear that had missed, and then rammed it into one of the white lightning tubes.
There was a horrible smell of burning, and then relative silence, as the engines stopped.
The only noise now was the sound of Dom's transporter, and Taya realized it was getting on her nerves.
The sound of metal clattering on rock came from behind her and she whirled to see what it was.
Zek had dropped his last spear. He stood staring at the downed craft. “He got them all.”
She thought that's what he said, because the headache that hit her like a vicious, vindictive strike forced her to her knees, and then over to her side.
She was a baby when it came to calling the Change, and she'd overextended.
Through the dark buzz, as purple and orange lights flashed behind her eyes, she remembered that time, long ago, when Garek had fallen in the main street of Pan Nuk.
Guess it was her turn.
She woke slowly, aware of a vibration beneath her, and what felt like her coat under her head, the warmth of something covering her, as well.
Murmurs and quiet conversation floated in the air around her, along with the sounds of feet shuffling and clothes rustling.
She opened her eyes to the familiar dimensions of the transporter, and slowly lifted herself up on her elbows. The warm covering was Garek's coat, tucked around her, and she smoothed a hand down it.
Min crouched down beside her, smiling, and handed her a wooden cup of water.
She sipped it gratefully, her throat feeling like it was coated with dust, which it probably was, given how much of the stuff Garek and Kas had thrown into the air.
“Where--?” She coughed, and had to drink some more.
“On the way to Harven. We're nearly there, I think. Zek is acting as navigator.”
So they had gotten away.
“The Kardanx? The ones who were hit?” She closed her eyes at the memory and shivered. That is what had once happened to her. To all of them. Somehow, seeing it done to someone, seeing those sparking white lights crawl like bloodsuckers over the Kardanx was horrifying. It was like the lightning was alive. A creature that enveloped its prey.
She felt nausea rise in her throat, and slowly sipped a little more water, breathed deeply.
“They're unconscious. Garek let the Kardanx kill all three pilots. The one in the first craft was nearly dead anyway, but the other two were very much alive.” Min looked off to the side, as if remembering it.
Taya struggled to sit, leaned against the cool metal wall. “It disturbed you?”
“I wanted them t
o do it, and then I felt sorry for the sky raiders.” Min shrugged.
“They wanted blood, then?” she asked, understanding the need. “They would have died eventually if we'd left them there.”
“Garek said they needed to die. Just in case the sky raiders rescued them and they told their commanders what happened. What we can do. What defenses we've worked out. Maybe they can send messages up to the sky above, maybe not, but it was better to make sure they couldn't share our secrets.”
It was harsh, but Taya knew the element of surprise was also the only edge they had, when everything else was stacked against them.
“Taya.” Quardi rolled up to her, and the delight on his face warmed her, dispelling some of the chill Min's words had settled on her shoulders. Before this was over, there would be many more times they all had to make hard decisions.
“You didn't leave me lying on the Endless Escarpment to learn my lesson, I see,” she teased him, forcing the darkness back a little.
He frowned, then threw back his head and laughed as he recalled the Garek-in-the-street incident. “That was you, with the pillow and the blanket, wasn't it?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she said to him, and used the wall behind her to pull herself to her feet, hooking her finger in the collar of Garek's coat. “You were all right? In the transporter?”
Quardi had stayed inside, watching over Eli and Luci. His chair would have been useless on the rutted, uneven road, and even worse off it, and it had made sense for someone to stand guard, just in case a sky raider had gotten inside.
Quardi patted the mallet still lying across his lap. “I was the safest one of all of you.”
Taya kissed him on the cheek, and then walked unsteadily forward, one hand on the wall, until she reached the pilot's chamber.
Garek turned his head, his eyes hot, and she stumbled over to him, draped his coat over his shoulders and let him pull her onto his lap.
“When I heard my father laugh, I knew you'd woken.” He smiled against her forehead.
“I told him I was grateful he didn't leave me lying there to learn my lesson.”
Sky Raiders Page 27