The Ancients (The Survivors Book Four)

by Nathan Hystad

  Slate didn’t have a weapon, so I ushered him over to the crevasse we’d come into the room from, where a Raanna helped get him out of the way. “I can help,” he said as he stumbled, almost falling down.

  “You can save me next time,” I said and went back into the room, pulse rifle ready to fire at the beast. I went near Mary but kept far enough back to stay out of her crossfire. It was my job to distract it, since we were mostly sure only her weapon could kill it.

  The figure came racing down, and I gave my wet hands one more wipe before placing my finger on the trigger. The screeches were getting closer, each beat of my heart ringing in my ears alongside the high-pitched noise.

  It appeared, racing down from above headfirst. Right when I thought it might go straight into the lava, it changed trajectories much more quickly than I’d guessed it could and headed straight for us. In the seconds from it turning, to me firing a series of volleys at it, everything slowed. I saw its face, and it was one from a horror movie. Fangs rose from its lower jaw, which jutted forward like a bat mixed with a bulldog.

  Tiny black eyes darted between me, the cocoon, and Mary, as if it was deciding the most important thing to deal with first. It chose Mary.

  I fired, feeling the metal of the trigger press hard against my index finger as I held it down, red beams lashing out toward the moth. I needed a new name for it, because this was no flittering dusty-winged insect. It was a monster with a fifteen-foot wingspan and an anger issue.

  The beams hit their target, but blue energy crackled around it as they struck.

  “Damn you, Theos!” I yelled. It had turned, coming toward me for an instant, and Mary let loose an energy arrow from the bow. I watched with bated breath as the arrow flew at the creature barreling down on me. It carried past the monster’s energy shield and clipped a wing, white light blasting the room as it bounced off the appendage.

  The moth screamed in anguish and fell to the ground, sliding along the floor with its left wing in front of its face to slow it.

  “Shoot it again!” I shouted even as I fired more beams, blowing lava rock to shreds around the moth. It scrambled to its feet, towering over us in the cavern. Each breath felt like my last as my chest heaved, and my legs pumped away from the lumbering moth. Large hands at the end of its wings swung toward me, and I kept moving, running in circles in the open area, trying to distract it long enough for Mary’s arrow to find purchase.

  The moth’s back straightened as a white light boomed behind it. She’d struck it! The howl of pain that erupted from its horrible mouth was one that would haunt me forever. Warm rotten spittle flew from its lips, finding a home on my face, but I just kept firing near it.

  Another scream. This time, Mary fired at its head. The arrows hit, dissipating as their energy spread through the moth. I strafed, moving behind the bellowing beast, and fired at the rocks, directing it toward the lava pit.

  Mary was beside me now, nocking another arrow of white light. She let it loose as I fired near its feet. The moth stood screeching as it moved its now mostly limp wings in an effort to stay upright. An arrow hit its hairy chest, and that was it. The moth’s eyes closed, and it tumbled backward toward the open pit of lava.

  It lashed out, clawed digits flying through the air at us, but it was too far away. The swing caused it to go off balance, and its feet slipped over the ledge. Gravity took over. Soon all we saw were its thick-nailed fingers digging into the lava rock, gouging deep cuts as it moved further down the opening.

  I walked forward, ready to end this. Mary held her bow up, another light arrow nocked. She took aim for its head, which was now flailing around in anger. Smoke and ash carried up, the heat threatening to overwhelm me. Mary let the arrow loose, and it struck the moth in between its beady eyes. White light coursed through the creature, and its hands went limp. I took one more step, watching as it started to fall.

  “Dean, look out!” Mary called, but it was too late. A clawed hand snapped up so quickly, I never had a chance to move away. The ground was no longer under my feet, and I was falling.

  Eighteen

  There are times where it takes the brain longer to register something than the body does. This was one of those times. My hands reached out, reacting when my mind was still confused. I gripped the rock ledge, looking down as the moth fell fifty feet to the lava pit. It was still glowing with white light, and as soon as it hit, the volcano shook, jostling my already weak handhold. Soon there was nothing but the moth’s extended wing sticking out of the lava, then nothing. It was submerged.

  Mary was there, trying to grab my arm, but everything was too sweaty, too slippery. The volcano shook again, and I could feel each individual finger slip. Slate was there now, and Scar. But I had already fallen.

  I knew the lava would come soon, and I watched my wife’s eyes go wide in horror. In those last moments, I tried to tell her I loved her, but the words came out in thick coughs.

  I closed my eyes, ready for the inevitable, but it didn’t happen. Something wrapped around my waist and snapped firm, holding me twenty yards over the bubbling lava. The volcano was angry now. Some lava splashed and nearly landed on my jumpsuit. I could feel myself beginning to burn.

  Before I knew what had happened, I was being lifted in the air, away from the gurgling pit. For the first time, I looked to my waist, seeing a thick web of material swathed around me. I was face-down as I was pulled up, and could see changes in the lava. It was hardening as the white light from the arrows spread through it.

  Strong arms grabbed me and dragged me over the ledge until I was lying on my back, staring up at Scar, Slate, and Mary.

  “Oh, Dean. I thought I’d lost you.” Tears fell down Mary’s ash-covered face, spilling in straight lines.

  “What happened?”

  “Scar shot some webbing out of his…” Slate stopped short, smiling. “I think you get the point.”

  “Thank you, Scar,” I said, and when it translated, he warned us we must leave.

  The volcano was changing, the lava going hard. But the whole area felt volatile, and that meant we needed to make a quick exit. Now that I was on my feet, we made for the crack in the nest’s wall and left the way we came. Dust and ash fell on us, and I blinked, seeing the horror of the moth’s face as it was dying.

  “Wait! Each world had a prize. A seed…” Mary ducked as a chunk of rock fell. Slate and I were on the opposite side of the cave-in from Mary and Scar: them on the outside and us inside.

  “It has to be inside the nest,” Slate said, already turning back.

  “It’s too dangerous; this place is falling apart!” Mary called.

  “We’ll be back. Get outside!” I called as the tunnel shook again. Scar shot webbing out of his body and handed me a line of sinewy rope. I looped it up and swung it around my shoulder.

  Slate was running blindly in the dark, and I followed, with a last look back at Mary’s worried eyes. “Get outside!” I shouted one last time, and then they were moving. “Slate, get behind me,” I said, and he let me pass him, then set a hand on my left shoulder as we went back to the nest. The smell was less invasive now that the lava was drying up. The room actually had some light peeking in from above the volcano’s vent, and I removed my goggles.

  “Where would it be?” Slate asked, rummaging through the space. There were chunks of bodies under piles of ash, and I wrinkled my nose as I stepped near them.

  “Hopefully not under this.” My foot kicked out, hitting the mess with a splat. The shaking slowed, and ash no longer floated down on us as more light poured into the room from outside. “The ash cloud must be dissipating.”

  “Good.” Slate was in the corner, looking at the cocoon he’d been stuck inside. He ripped it down, tossing the sticky case onto the ground. Behind it was a smaller cocoon, hanging closer to the ceiling. “We can’t reach it.”

  I pictured getting on Slate’s shoulders, like a kid on his father’s back at a summer parade. It wasn’t a good idea for my wobbly-foote
d friend to be hauling me around like that.

  “The rope,” I said, unslinging it from my arm. Slate found a bone on the ground and picked it up with a grimace. I wrapped the rope end around it, tying it tight. Small rocks were still falling from the ceiling and walls. “Let’s hope this works.”

  I felt the Relocator in my pocket and chided myself for not even thinking about it earlier. It was set for the area just outside the volcano, from when we’d first arrived on this world.

  Slate took the rope, and with surprising skill, swung it in small circles and let the bone-weighted end loose. It arced for the sac and nearly wrapped around it before slipping off and clattering to the ground. He did this again a few more times, with no success. He was pale, and he needed to lean against the wall in between throws. He’d been in the cocoon too long, and his lack of sleep was dangerously apparent.

  “Do you want me to try?” I asked. As if some competitive nature in him took over, his next throw cinched around the top of the white sac, and he gave a light grin as he tugged down. The cocoon broke free from its mount on the rocky ceiling and hit the ground with a thud.

  Something wriggled inside it.

  “Go ahead, boss,” Slate said, motioning me toward it.

  “What the hell is inside it? It’s too small…” Then it hit me. What went into cocoons? Caterpillars or larvae. I passed Slate my pulse rifle. “Get ready to blast this thing.”

  I ripped the outer layer back. The same white sticky stuff that had covered Slate was inside, but the smell was far worse, like it had been there for a long time. A three-foot-long, multi-legged larva writhed inside, and there I saw it. This thing was going to become another moth, and a purple light shone from inside its opaque skin.

  “Sorry, guy,” Slate said as the butt end of the pulse rifle came down. “We can’t have more moth baddies hurting our new friends.” The sickening noise of the bug dying now over, I found a sharp rock beside me, turned my head, and cut the seed out. It glowed dimly as my hand wrapped around it.

  “This may be one of the grossest things we’ve had to do,” I said before thinking about all the dying Kraski on their mother ship as the Kalentrek ended their race with efficiency. I added “cutting open a giant larva and pulling out a glowing stone seed” to the list, but it was further down than I would have initially thought.

  The seed hummed in my hand, and I didn’t know where to put it. Crossing the room to the lava pit, I peered over the ledge, only to see a clawed hand sticking out of the dried lava below. There was no scientific way molten lava could turn so quickly, especially without a large temperature change, unless it was just the surface layer affected. I had a feeling it wasn’t.

  “There’s nothing left for us here. Let’s go.” I set my hand on Slate’s arm, sticking the seed into my pocket. With my free hand, I got the Relocator and tapped the icon.

  ____________

  The system’s star shone down, an evident warmth that wasn’t there before. The Raanna strolled around happily, finally rid of their multi-eyed night goggles. They were already working at reclaiming their partially destroyed city, and we saw more evidence of an advanced society as their hidden-away vehicles and soldering irons came out of storage. Their city was made up of short buildings, but its expanse was far greater than I would have expected. Agriculture was a huge part of their lives, and it was exciting to learn they had scientists, doctors, and teachers. There was far more to them than their likeness to the small spiders of Earth.

  The volcano in the distance was shrinking as the outer walls were crumbling in. Soon there would be nothing but a pile of black rock to mark the area where the moth nest had been, and that chapter would be over and done with for the spider people.

  Scar stood beside me, staring at the same thing as I was. He grinned, a strange look on his alien face. “Appreciation,” the translation said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Mary approached, looking much more rested after a good night’s sleep. The Raanna had taken us in, supplied some fungi and water, and given us places to rest. It was much needed, and I felt like a new man.

  “I think we know where to go with the seed. They have a place of shame, the one where they first found this moth. It was in a glowing cocoon, and they kept watch over it, making sure no harm came to the fragile casing.” Mary waved over Slate, who was helping a Raanna clear debris from the front entrance of a still-standing building. “There were symbols on the walls of the cave, but none of them have been back since it turned on them, and the volcano started to cover their world with an ash cloud of darkness.”

  Slate had recovered well, and he looked full of energy once again. “Where is it?”

  “They’ll show us whenever we like.”

  I turned around, happy to see the Raanna able to start again. My anger at the Theos was reignited. They’d played with far too many lives, and I didn’t think any excuse would make up for that. I wanted to find them, now more than ever. They were going to get a piece of my mind, whether they cared to hear it or not.

  “I’d like to learn more about them,” I said, and Slate was already off to help move a fallen tree with a couple of Raanna.

  It must have taken every ounce of Mary’s composure to mask her exasperation. I could see it in her face. She wanted to leave. “We’re so close.” She kept her voice down and for my ears only. “We only have two more…” She paused, searching for the right word for it. “Challenges.” Her phrase was friendlier than mine would have been at that moment.

  I could tell I wasn’t going to win this one. “Scar, it was a pleasure meeting you.” I waited while the strange language passed through the translator and he listened intently. “I’ll try to come back if I can.”

  His mouth tightened, and I wasn’t sure if that meant he hoped this was the last he’d see of us or the opposite. “Heroes. Appreciation.” He slapped me lightly on the back with his right hand and smiled once again.

  “We’re ready to see the hatching place,” Mary said, and Scar’s smile faded in an instant. He barked out a few orders, and then we were ready to go.

  A solar-powered vehicle approached, looking worse for wear, and I realized most of their technology relied on the sun. No wonder they were living like cavemen underground. They couldn’t power anything. It was a wide unit, with the steering at the rear, and a flat-railed deck like a boat that we all climbed onto.

  Massive wheels rolled along the ash-covered ground. I wondered how long it would take for the landscape to change. Maybe with the sun and no ash cloud, normal weather could return, along with rain to wash away the memory of their time in the dark. For the Raanna’s sake, I hoped so.

  Mary stood at the bow of the deck, the wind blowing her hair in a flurry of brown locks. I walked up behind her, careful to stay on my feet as the vehicle moved at a modest speed. A small mountain range lingered in the distant horizon; our target, Scar had said. She spoke, not turning back to look at me. “I love you, Dean.”

  “I love you too.” I wrapped my arms around her. “Sorry for the smell. I was elbow deep in some larvae, and apparently, it sticks with you.”

  “That’s the least of my concerns.” She didn’t expand on her thoughts, and I didn’t ask. I just stood with her in my arms, watching as thin white clouds raced across the bright sky.

  We rode like that for over half an hour, the mountain range growing larger with each passing minute. Eventually, we came to a rigid stop, and I had to hold on to the rail to keep from upending myself as the Raanna stepped forcefully on the brakes. It had been a while since any of them had driven.

  Slate had been lying on a bench, where he was still recovering from his time spent in the grasp of the moth. The three of us exited the flat vehicle by way of the steps down on the aft side of the deck.

  “Scar, are you coming?” Mary asked when the Raanna didn’t move forward with us.

  “Stay. Cursed.” He handed me a map scrawled out on a gray piece of paper. “Here.” His finger pointed to a larg
e X on the crude map.

  “Thank you for all your help,” I said, looking up to the alien. His scars seemed even heavier in the bright daylight.

  “Appreciate,” he said one last time, and the vehicle backed up. The three of us stood and watched as they left us alone on their remote world, at the hatching place of the moth that had nearly destroyed their lives.

  “I guess we’re on our own.” Slate hefted a pack in one hand and his pulse rifle in the other. Mary still carried her bow, and when I offered to take the bag from Slate, he ignored me.

  The map took us around a hill and into a valley between a couple of the mountains. They were still covered in ash, and the desolate landscape was depressing to see. We followed the map into the center of the valley, where the X was marked. An entrance into a cliff face opened on our left as we neared it.

  “It’s always a cave, or a cavern, or a pit with these guys,” I said.

  “They do have a style,” Mary said. The opening was manufactured, cut in parallel lines with an arch at the top. We entered it, the seed from inside the moth larva in my hand now. It was warm to the touch, and I knew its home was nearby.

  We were done with three legs of the hunt; the final stretch was before us. As soon as I stepped into the cave, I felt the familiar presence the Theos left behind. After being visited by the shadow man a few times, my senses were now picking up the Theos essence. I wondered if the others felt it too, but judging by the blank looks on their faces, they didn't. Was I their fabled True? Would I discover them and be able to assist in saving the universe from this mystical Unwinding we knew next to nothing about?

  “Over there,” Mary said, pointing to a corner where a cocoon-shaped stone sat carved into the rock wall. A divot was cut into the front center of the stone, the perfect indent to place the palm-sized oval seed into.

  Without any further delay, I set it into the cocoon rock and waited for the show. Black mist emerged as expected from the stone; their theatrics were getting a little old. Mary still held a look of awe and interest, while Slate just wore a deep frown. I think he was sick of it all, like I was.