Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2)

by Becca Mills

  A second later I was on the ground, trying to catch my breath.

  Williams glared down at me.

  “Don’t be a fool,” he spat.

  He had Copper by one rein. The little horse was dancing around Bertha in a tizzy, mouth working as the bit sawed against his gums.

  Terry jumped down and pulled me to my feet.

  “How many?” Williams said.

  Kevin shook his head. “Not sure … more than a dozen. Maybe twenty.”

  Mizzy gasped.

  Terry caught hold of Copper and helped me into the saddle, then ran back to his horse. Ida tossed her pack string to Kevin and drew her shotgun.

  Williams looked grim. “Stay in formation.”

  He pulled his shotgun from its scabbard. Then he trotted forward. The rest of us followed closely.

  I could feel my face burning. Why had I gone rushing off like that? So stupid.

  After a few hundred feet, the road curved right and rose to one of those hillside cuts. Williams slowed to a walk and led us forward around the bend.

  A scene of carnage unfolded.

  Dead horses were scattered across the road.

  Dinosaurs were eating them.

  They were much larger than the ones I’d met in the Octoworld isolate. Most were my height at the shoulder. A few were bigger. They were heavily built, with massive heads and tiny, fingerless stumps for arms. They were covered with fuzzy little feathers, like giant, partially plucked chickens.

  Turkey problem’s getting worse, Mr. Gates had said.

  Our horses jigged around nervously. I could feel Copper quivering beneath me. I prayed he wouldn’t bolt.

  Williams said, “Stay close,” and rode forward. Bertha arched her neck and shifted her weight back onto her hindquarters, picking up a slow trot.

  The closest dinosaur raised its head. Gobs of glistening flesh hung from its teeth. It eyed us, then opened its mouth and roared out a strange, high screech. The inside of its mouth was coated with gore and horse hair.

  Six others raised their heads to study us. Then they charged.

  Terry dropped the first two with quick three-round bursts from his M4. Ida took the one behind it. Her rifle was deafening.

  Most of the remaining dinos left their prey and silently melted into the forest, but one of them advanced on us.

  This time the guns had no effect — the animal was using a barrier.

  Williams’s hand twitched, and some invisible thing hit the animal from the left, sweeping it up and slamming it into the bank on the other side of the road. It was left embedded in the earth, crushed and oozing.

  Our barrier-worker was stronger than theirs.

  We continued around the bend. For a few seconds I thought the men of the trading party had escaped, but then they came into sight. They were huddled at the side of the road, right up against the embankment. Several dinos were trying to get at them. Most of the animals were just pacing around, waiting for an opportunity, but one of them was mouthing something I couldn’t see, tugging and twisting at it.

  Another worker. It was trying to break whatever barrier the men had put up.

  More dead horses were scattered about. These were tacked for riding. The men must’ve left their packhorses behind and tried to make a break for it, only to get caught by the second group.

  The dinos turned on us excitedly as we came into view. Terry killed one of them. The rest scattered, vanishing into the trees.

  We rode right up to the traders. One of them was down. Ida dismounted and went to him. The others hurriedly gathered up our packhorses and started covering their eyes with whatever cloth they could lay their hands on — spare saddle blankets, their own shirts, whatever.

  Williams stayed mounted. In fact, he reined Bertha around so that she faced out toward the road. I saw the others were doing the same.

  “You think they’re coming back?”

  He nodded.

  I thought about arming myself, but trying to handle Copper and a gun at the same time seemed foolish.

  For some minutes nothing happened. The forest around us was unnaturally quiet. The only sound was the injured trader’s gurgling breaths.

  Then Kevin shouted “Incoming!” and dinos burst from the trees on the far side of the road. Noise and movement were everywhere.

  I didn’t know where to look.

  Then one of them singled me out, and my world narrowed to just that animal.

  Instead of bolting, Copper pinned back his ears and lunged forward, striking and snapping at it. The thing feinted left and dove in at me, mouth gaping. Copper wheeled around to meet it — but too slowly.

  But of course, Williams had a barrier around me. The dino slammed into it nose-first and went down. It thrashed around, trying to lever itself up with one stumpy arm.

  I dropped my reins, fumbled the .44 out of my holster, and fired all six rounds.

  The dino regained its feet. For a moment, I thought I’d missed it entirely. But it took just one step, then swayed and fell.

  Copper spun around and ducked his head, sending me straight into the mud. Squealing, he landed a string of solid but useless kicks on the dino’s corpse.

  I scrambled up and drew my .38, but nothing else came at me. I looked around and saw the fight was over.

  Dead dinos were piled around us. Some had been flattened. Others had been shot. Williams and Terry in action, I guess.

  I reloaded my .44, concentrating on not dropping the rounds.

  Faintly, I could hear Williams reloading his shotgun. Everything sounded like it was happening underwater — the gunfire had shocked my hearing.

  All was silent as the minutes ticked by. Then a few bird calls sounded, and the forest began to come back to life.

  Behind me, Copper shook his head. Then he nipped my shoulder.

  That more than anything told me the dinos weren’t coming back.

  The others apparently came to the same conclusion. Kevin dismounted and went to Ida. I watched as he lifted the blanket she’d laid over the man and then wished I hadn’t — a chunk bigger than my face had been ripped out of the center of his back.

  Healing gifts worked in different ways. The strongest healers could push the body’s form backwards to its pre-injury condition. My friend Kara healed that way. She left no scars and could fix almost anything, assuming she had enough power to pull it off. But most healers pushed the body’s own healing process forward. If Ida was that kind of healer, she wouldn’t be able to fix a wound like this one. Too much tissue was missing.

  She straightened up, and I saw from her grim expression that she couldn’t help the man.

  The lead trader approached her. “Can you do nothing?”

  “I am sorry. I have eased his pain. That is all I can do.”

  “We will bring him to a stronger healer in Butua.”

  Ida shook her head. “He will die before we can reach town. I am sorry.”

  The trader sighed. “His mother will have my head.”

  I suddenly remembered Serhan. I edged closer to see who the injured man was, but he was lying face down. I examined the other traders and eventually picked out Serhan’s face. He looked my way, but his eyes seemed to pass over me without recognition. He looked to be in shock.

  The man speaking to Ida shook his head. “I have never known so many to attack at once.”

  “They are learning to cooperate,” Terry said. “The stronger workers among them are building packs. It has already happened near Free. Here, two packs worked together.”

  The man sighed. “I have heard such things, but I did not believe it. I have traveled this road safely for twenty years.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “We must go,” Williams said.

  “We need time to salvage our goods,” one of the other traders said.

  Williams glanced at the sky.

  “Ten minutes,” he said grudgingly.

  The traders started moving quickly among their fallen packhorses,
removing what they could and piling it at the side of the road. I guess they planned to come back for it.

  Williams walked back down the road, checking the downed horses. He must’ve found one alive back around the bend, because I heard a single shot.

  Ida bent down next to the dino I’d killed and put her hand on its head. Her eyes got a faraway look. “Terry was right. Two packs, working together. They’ve been stalking these people for hours. They smelled blood.” She cast an angry look over at the surviving traders. “This one wanted to stop and eat the packhorses, but the pack leader wanted to kill the people too.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

  “No.” She stood up, wiping her hand on her pants. “Strategic thinking.”

  “Animals that can work essence — are they also smarter?”

  “Maybe sometimes. I think mostly they just survive longer and learn more. Lord knows, human workers aren’t any smarter than the average person.”

  The traders had collected their most valuable cargo and were adding it to our packhorses.

  A cry went up from the side of the road. The injured man had died.

  “We must bury him,” the lead trader said.

  “No time,” Williams said.

  “It is impossible to leave him.”

  Williams turned away without answering.

  “Sir!” the trader shouted, enraged. “This is barbaric!”

  Mizzy swooped in, soothing ruffled feathers. Surely the unfortunate dead man wouldn’t want his friends caught outside the walls after dark. The safety of the living must be the first priority. And what of the dead man’s family? Word must be brought to them immediately. Furthermore, we had no shovels. And so forth.

  It was a masterful performance. I could see the traders calming as her tide of words washed over them. They quickly agreed it was best to return for their friend’s remains the next day. They placed the dead man in a position of repose at the side of the road, and we moved out.

  As we left, I looked back at the corpses strewn everywhere — more than a dozen dinosaurs, twice that many horses, and, off to the side, the dead man. A solid three hundred feet of roadway had been churned into a reddish paste, clotted with flesh, viscera, and shreds of skin. Flies and small birds had already arrived. I could see larger birds circling overhead, and a bunch of knee-high dinos with naked heads and green body-plumage were hanging back by the trees, ready to scavenge.

  Turning back to the north, I saw untouched road stretching before us. It looked just like every other stretch of road we’d seen since yesterday morning.

  Looking at that peaceful road, it seemed impossible that what was behind me was really there. I felt sure that if I turned to look back again, it would all be gone, and I’d realize I’d imagined the whole thing.

  A disturbing sense of unreality settled over me.

  Terry stopped beside me. “You all right?”

  “Yeah. It’s just … so weird.”

  “Are you new to battle?”

  “New enough.”

  He smiled. “You get used to it.”

  I took a steadying breath and then tried to speak loudly enough for everyone to hear over the buzzing in our ears.

  “I’m sorry I went rushing off like that, back when we first heard the attack. I just wasn’t thinking.”

  For several long, painful seconds, no one said anything.

  Finally, Ida spoke up. “Well, hon, you’ve got guts. That’s something.”

  Her tone suggested it was a very small something compared to common sense.

  It was drawing toward evening by the time we reached Butua. The guards were standing around just inside the town’s walls, looking antsy, as though they very much wanted to close the gates.

  Williams waited while the traders removed their belongings from our packhorses. Then he led us deeper into the town.

  As we walked away, I looked back. The traders were standing in a cluster just inside the gates, looking desolate. Serhan caught my eye for a moment. His face was full of grief and anger.

  Then we rounded a corner, and I lost sight of them.

  Butua was quite a bit shabbier than Free. The streets were dirty and in poor repair. A pall of smoke hung in the air, and everything smelled like sulfur.

  Some beady-eyed species of flightless bird had colonized the streets. They scuttled everywhere, filthy, greasy, and squabbling over scraps of garbage — the avian equivalent of rats, except bigger. The next time I heard someone call the good old New York City pigeon a “winged rat,” I’d set them straight. Pigeons were paragons of cleanliness and decorum compared to these things.

  Williams checked several inns before finding one on the northern edge of town that could accommodate all of us and our horses. The place wasn’t fancy, but it seemed reasonably clean.

  I bathed and changed before dinner. Williams’s close-up shotgun work had coated me in a fine mist of dino blood. I tried to wash without thinking about it too much.

  When I was clean, I went down to the common room and found the others already assembled for dinner. I took a seat next to Mizzy just as the barmaid arrived with our food.

  Terry seemed unaffected by the day’s events, digging into his meal hungrily and joking with the barmaid, who was pretty and very buxom.

  Everyone else was off their game.

  Kevin was even quieter than usual. He was gripping his cup so hard I could see his knuckles outlined against his skin. He wasn’t a fighter, I realized. Most trackers weren’t, even though their gift meant they were often on the scene when bad shit went down.

  Mizzy’s sole attempt to tell a story ended when someone slammed the front door, and she startled so badly she lost her train of thought. Ida kept muttering under her breath about the idiot traders, hunting first thing in the morning and then carting their bloody trophies through Dino Central.

  As for Williams, he was more than “off.” His constant undercurrent of anger had been replaced with something more like cold, focused rage. I figured it was aimed at me. But darn it, I’d already apologized for my mistake. He needed to let it go.

  After about twenty minutes, Kevin sighed and got up. “I’m turning in. ’Night.”

  Williams said, “Sit.”

  Everyone at the table came to attention in one way or another.

  Kevin sat, glancing around the room. “What’s up?”

  Williams raised his head, and I braced myself. But he didn’t look at me. He looked at Mizzy.

  “Why didn’t you help today?”

  She shrugged, toying with the food on her plate. “You had it in hand.”

  Williams stared at her silently.

  “Hold on,” I said. “She did help. The traders didn’t want to leave the dead guy behind, and she talked them into it.”

  “That’s right,” Ida said, nodding. “We might not have reached shelter before dark if she hadn’t gotten them going.”

  Williams didn’t take his eyes off Mizzy. “Answer me.”

  Terry leaned back in his chair, looking bored. “Why are you giving her a hard time? Not everyone has to be a fighter. We handled it. It’s done.”

  Williams glanced at him. “She could’ve scared all those animals away with a word.” He returned his gaze to Mizzy. “She didn’t even try. I want to know why.”

  Mizzy smirked at him. “I didn’t pick up on how scared you were. Guess I should’ve taken care of it for you.”

  For the love of god, don’t taunt him!

  I turned to reason with her and caught sight of her hands, which were clasped in her lap. They were shaking.

  She was scared. She was brazening it out, but she was terrified.

  A little twitch of suspicion ran through me, but I tamped it down. Of course she was frightened of him. Who wouldn’t be? It was to her credit that she tried to hide it.

  I squirmed under the tension.

  Maybe breaking up the group would calm things down. I pushed back from the table. “I’m really tired, guys. I’m g
oing to bed.”

  I headed for the stairs.

  Williams caught up with me on the landing. He closed one huge hand around my upper arm and stopped me cold. I forced myself not to jerk away from him — I wouldn’t be able to break his grip. I stayed still and waited, concentrating on breathing steadily.

  “Don’t undercut me with them,” he said.

  I tried to come up with a snappy retort, but my mind offered up a big goose egg. So I just shrugged.

  His grip on my arm tightened. “I can’t keep you alive if you keep doing stupid shit.”

  “Not wanting to sit there and watch you terrify a woman isn’t stupid.”

  “You think because she’s a woman she isn’t dangerous?”

  “No, of course —”

  “She’s stronger than I am, and she knows it.”

  I stared up at him, surprised.

  “Powell isn’t a fighter,” he said. “Washington and MacAngus are firearms only. You’re a mystery. That leaves me, and there’s no reason she should trust me. She could’ve defended herself easily. Instead, she put her life in my hands. Makes no sense.”

  Though it was painful, I had to admit he had a point.

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.” I thought about it. “Are you going to send her home?”

  He stood there silently for a few moments, looking down. When he finally spoke, he sounded frustrated.

  “‘Mizu’ means ‘water.’ In Japanese.”

  Williams speaks Japanese?

  “So?”

  “Callie’s prophecy.”

  Water will save you.

  “She can’t have meant a person. She’d have said ‘a beautiful woman’ or something, if that’s what she meant.”

  He didn’t bother arguing. Instead, he let go of me and stepped back. “Be careful around her. Don’t let her touch you. And don’t be stupid.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Being called “stupid” was pissing me the hell off, but losing my temper with Williams wouldn’t do any good — this was not someone who cared about my opinion or feelings.

  A number of seconds passed, and I realized he wasn’t going to say anything further, so I turned and headed up to my room.

  I got in bed and thought about Mizzy.

  I needed some allies, and so far, she seemed like the best candidate. I enjoyed her company. She was smart and funny. And she hadn’t wanted to come with us. If she meant us ill, she would’ve wanted to come, right?