“So, uh—what was the deal with all the screaming?” Vin asked as he spooned a giant meatball into his mouth.
“Bad dreams. You remember the engine hideouts I used to make us? I was back there, except rather than the usual Underground problems, I was being attacked by—I don’t even know how to describe it—Source bubbles? From the Blight crystal and the Olivier crystal. It was like they were fighting each other, inside my body, but also turning into something new.”
“So, that’s why you woke up and demanded to cut open a rat.”
Tani nodded, taking a sip of her soup, “I couldn’t help but wonder if there is some effect when they combine, or if it was just a lack of sleep giving me vivid dreams.”
Vin waved his fork in the air, like an extra hand as he spoke with excitement, “I would normally vote on lack of sleep, but it reminds me of the time when you were fixing that one bot from the ditch. The one with all the shielding? You had a bad dream about it, woke up sweating, and insisted we put it back. When those other scavs fixed it, it blew them up. It was like somehow you knew it was bad and you had to not touch it.”
Tani shrugged, “That is easy to explain. I knew so many of its systems—navigation, targeting, engines—that even though I didn’t realize it was a bomb itself, I knew those systems weren’t going to come together in a pleasant way. But this—this I know nothing about. At least not Olivier’s crystal. And only a little about the Blight crystal. I don’t think this is as simple as an intuitive leap.”
Vin stabbed another meatball and brought it up to his mouth, pausing as he held it right in front of his face, “Still—maybe it’s good to be cautious. I trust your crazy pathetic Terran intuition. I think there’s something here.”
Tani pushed down her fear that he might be right and picked up her bowl to drink the last of the broth. She could feel Vin watching her, a little too close, waiting for a reaction.
Dammit, Vin.
59
Shara
They were blind. The flurry of heavy snows turned the mountainside into a slippery and dangerous trek and the steep slope didn’t help. Shara held an arm up over her eyes to protect them from the snowfall, but she had to rely on Intuition to lead her small team behind her. Taeri brought up the rear to try to sense anyone coming from behind. With each step she yanked her leather boots from snow piles nearly up to her knees and slid before she found her next safe footing. She couldn’t hear the movement of her team beneath the anger of the wind as it pushed against them, threatening to push them back the way they came. If it succeeded, they would just fall and slide down the mountain until they hit a tree or rock.
Each of them had layers of their blankets wrapped around their torsos to provide them extra warmth with their armor readjusted to fit over them. She had chosen to slice off small strips and wrap her feet with the extras while her team had opted to wrap their thighs and upper arms instead. If she could see them, she would have had a hard time not laughing at their round padded bodies, waddling through the snow with careful kicks, their range of motion diminished severely. As the storm had worsened, they had to resort to tying themselves together, which made any slip dangerous to them all. It was better than losing her men.
I hope the Xenai are hiding from the snows rather than walking into the gale like us. They might be smarter than we are.
A sharp wind came howling against her, changing the direction of the wind to push against her side. Small hard snowflakes jammed into her right eye. She adjusted her arm to the side of her face and squinted into the snow. There was still nothing to see more than a few feet ahead of her. The wind shifted again, blowing snow into her face. She closed her eyes rather than try to shield them.
She could feel it all. The stone, the trees, the ground, the air carrying the snow, and the furious blanket of white that covered them and everything else. She wanted to check her Tab—were they almost to the next Blight deposit? The Tab would be useless in the storm—quickly covered by snow and impossible to see, if she even managed to keep her grip on it against the winds. She had only the mental image of the map and her own attempt to match the terrain around them to it to work from. The tall rock formation she could sense at the bottom of the hill was the only landmark she could match, and she could only pray that they were still walking toward it and hadn’t veered off to the side. She could sense the ridges of rocks, but they were still too far away to give her more than an impression of stone.
The sound of the wind changed, deepening and—yelping? She stopped moving, turning to her side and pushing her hand straight out to signal Sabeen to stop. Shara shivered against the deep cold of Sabeen’s armor as she walked into Shara’s hand. Shara let her hand be pushed back toward her under Sabeen’s momentum so as not to cause her to fall. Once Sabeen found her hand, she came to a stop and turned to stop the person behind her. After several minutes, they were clustered up. Shara tried to pull up a bubble of air around them, but the force of the winds was too strong for her source. She grabbed Sabeen’s hand and trudged around the group, looped around the others to reach Taeri at the back.
Taeri nodded at her.
“I’m not crazy?” She yelled, barely hearing her own voice and wondering if Taeri could from a foot away.
He shook his head and made an angry grimace and a waving motion like gesturing someone to come to him.
Shit.
She couldn’t feel their presence, but Xenai were close.
She yelled towards Taeri again, “Can you sense how far or which direction?”
He shrugged and pointed to his ear.
She made a walking gesture with her fingers over her palm, then an angry face, then started turning and pointing in directions, hoping Taeri could translate. He shook his head, then reached out and grabbed her hand, chanting. She felt the surge of support and closed her eyes, searching frantically via Intuition. A foreboding feeling mixed with anger and desperation washed over her as she found a few dozen forms in the snow.
She opened her eyes and dropped Taeri’s hand. She pointed to the Northeast, which was north from their own path and further back, but not nearly far enough from them. There was no way to know what the Xenai would do in the snow—could they handle it better than her kind? Maybe it wouldn’t hinder them at all.
She grabbed Taeri’s hand again, closed her eyes and felt for her landmark rock. A burst of energy surged through her as Taeri began his chant again that she couldn’t hear. It was there—a little south of them. They had wandered slightly north. She searched the path ahead of them to the rock. There were several trees and a small rock outcropping that brought the slope to a level before dropping ten feet. She looked for an alternate path. Straight west down the slope was the most clear. Only a tree lay in the path, covered in snow and at an angle, pointing closer to the rock than straight down the hill.
She pressed outward to her team with Intuition. They couldn’t hear her, but she focused on Taeri’s moonstone so that at least he could.
We have to slide, use the tree to send us to the bottom and bring us closer to the rock.
Taeri’s eyes widened in shock that she communicated with him without words. He squeezed her hand and she could feel his worry—not for himself, but for her. She pushed again, a simple feeling that everything would be okay. She felt Taeri squeeze her hand again, and his emotions changed to something akin to resolve. He let go of her hand. A few moments later, she felt him slide his arms low around her torso and—what is he doing? Squinting down at her hips, she realized he was tying his rope around her and untying hers. She reached out to stop him.
He shook his head with vigor, the feeling of resolve from him only getting stronger. She tried to stop him again by grabbing his arm and speaking through his Moonstone, “My idea—I need to take the biggest risk and protect everyone.”
He smiled, his mouth moved like he was speaking, but Shara couldn’t hear anything from him, via Intuition or through the air. He tilted his head, as if wondering if she had heard him, so sh
e shook hers back.
He went back to miming. He straightened his back and puffed out his chest, walking a step with a definitive air around him. Hafi? Another promise to keep me safe. God dammit.
She recalled what she had felt via Intuition and tried her best to send that over to Taeri—she had no idea if the vague shape and feeling of something over Intuition could be sent to another, and Taeri was no ambercaster. He wouldn’t know the log was there until he hit it. She sent another image, making sure he knew to use the deep snow to turn as he slid. She hoped he could do it well enough to avoid the others hitting the tree too hard, without any warning. He nodded at her. At least the last part seemed like it got through.
He started walking to the front of the group, moving each of them into a straight line, one right after the other, their ropes hanging loosely between them. He peered over at Shara and lifted his hands toward the sky and moved them to the side. She sent a feeling of reassurance his way, Yes, this is the right way.
Taeri lined himself up in front of Sabeen and then jumped, kicking out his feet from under him and falling on his back to slide. The light armor back piece he wore might as well have been a sled. He shot forward, the snow above him falling ontop of him and to the ground behind him as he slid through it, barely giving Sabeen enough time to prepare for what was happening. She tried to drop to a crouch, but the rope pulled her forward before she was fully ready. With a scream that barely pierced the wind, she began to slide, gaining momentum quickly as she struggled to get on her back, packing down more snow as she went. The rest of the group had already hustled to a sitting position and were leaning back, completely surrounded by snow. Shara placed her rope segment between her legs and waited only a few seconds before her rope yanked against her hips, her back popping from the force of the pull as she started sailing down the mountain.
In between the layers of snow, the wind above seemed harmless. She watched the flakes blustering by. Between how much was coming down and the speed they gained; the flakes turned into a soft white sheet above her. She felt for the tree with Intuition. It was way closer than she expected already. She shoved her hands out into the small snow walls on each side. Her arms jerked backward, and she felt the pressure in her shoulders and sockets as she struggled to keep them perpendicular to her body.
Fuck! This isn’t working!
She looked down between her feet at the path Taeri had forged. It was leaning slightly to her left. She closed her eyes again and focused on the tree, sensing the hollow in the snow as Taeri made it. She reached out to Seacast against the snow around the tree, pulling the snow from the top and opposite side to build a path of packed down snow like the one they were on along the side of the tree. She curved it gently at the top part of the tree first so that it would meet up with their path and hopefully keep them from hitting too hard. Taeri hit the tree before she completed forming the path, she could feel the shock of pain through him. He hit it too high, pushing it a little farther south facing. She searched over his body as her other teammates hit the shaped bank she had made.
No breaks, just pain.
She Lifecast on each member of their team, examining them quickly. She had forgotten to keep an eye on the log and hit it just as she checked over Melana, who was right in front of her. The jolt and pain knocked the breath out of Shara.
Once she got her breath back, she started feeling for a sense of the rock bank. It wasn’t too much farther, but each consecutive bounce off the tree had moved the way it pointed. It was small enough that Sabeen had followed straight after Taeri after a few seconds, but after that, all of them had shot off slightly more to their left than they could course-correct for. They had drifted out from Taeri’s trajectory and were now plowing their own paths through the snow. Soon, the rope connecting the team pulled Sabeen and Taeri off target. Shara frantically looked for what lay ahead of them, but it was too much to track. She checked Sabeen and Taeri’s paths down to the bottom, which seemed clear. The rest, she would have to Lifecast back into shape if anything happened—assuming it didn’t kill them before she could.
She reached the bottom, went sailing across what had been a stream before it froze over, still surrounded by snow as she sailed up the other side. Her momentum slowed, and she felt a hard jerk from the rope to her right side. It yanked her back at a sharper angle and she started moving back down the second hill backwards. She panicked, trying to rotate herself as she slid head first. It didn’t do much good, only managing to turn sideways as she slid down the hill in Melana’s direction. She scanned the terrain ahead of her and gasped; there was a rock jutting upwards right in her way back down. It was very wide and might even be in Melana’s path as well. Shara focused on it, but without Taeri’s help and more time, all she could do was break it apart into a pile of sharp pebbles and spread it enough in the snow that it was a sharp incline and sudden decline, padding with the snow that had been on top of it.
She watched Melana with Lifecasting until she clipped the stones. Her arm rubbed up against them and Shara sensed her skin ripping to shreds. Melana’s rerebrace must have hit stone after stone in the same spot until the stone compromised it. With Shara’s single piece of armor on her torso, she was much more exposed, and she was going over the middle of the pile of rocks.
She pulled her arms and legs up, placing her arms around her legs and clasping her hands together to hold the position while lifting her head as far from the ground as she could. Seconds later, she crashed into the rocks. She felt the jagged stones scraping her armor, starting on her right side. She held her breath, waiting for her armor to break.
She didn’t have to wait long. As she approached the halfway point of the rock pile, a single stone jutted out of the pile just enough to shatter her plating halfway down the backside of her breastplate. She shrieked as she felt the stones scraped against the open area, stabbing through the layer of blanket and catching her leather shirt. It didn’t take long for the rocks to wear down the leather and started poking into her back, ripping her open. The contrast of warm wet blood from burning lines of wounds in her back and the freezing rocks and snow made her gasp for air, then start to sob. The rocks caught on the armor that was not broken until little pieces were chipped away over and over again. A third of her back was exposed and shredded raw.
She could be grateful for one thing: the rocks had slowed her down. Afraid of another jerk to change her trajectory or give her more speed, she reached around until she pulled a dagger free. Each movement made her back burn and jolt with pain. She screamed as she sliced at the rope around her until she freed herself. She dropped a foot off the edge of the rocks, her back slamming into the ground after it pushed the snow down. She was moving slowly now as the last of the hill leveled out. She came to a stop on the east side of the frozen stream where she hit the incline they had first come down. Managing only to push herself onto her left side with her back in the snow behind her, she passed out.
Shara felt a shock of pain in her sleep. She could barely open her eyes. She tried to get her arms to move, to put hands under her and push herself up, but as soon as moved she remembered the rocks and the pain in her back came searing forward in her mind. She cried softly and dropped her arms back to her sides.
“Sh, shhhh, you’re okay, hon.” Taeri’s voice came to her.
She tried to look around without moving her neck. They were in some sort of cave, covered in snow, the blue light of Tabs lighting up the snow she could see towering like a wall in front of her.
“I need to change your bandages and pack some more snow on you. It ain’t gonna feel good just, uh, don’t move. Good to see those blue eyes, though.” She heard the voices of her teammates chime in that they were glad she was awake.
Shara moaned out a grunt at Taeri, each breath hurting. She focused on Lifecasting to examine herself while Taeri worked. Her skin was ribbons in the middle of her back and her lattiumus dorsi muscles were exposed and wounded, along with small back sections of her external obliq
ues. She would be laid up for weeks without Lifecasting on herself. She started to focus on the cast, finding the torn muscle pieces to forge back together first.
She shrieked as Taeri began to pull off the bandages. She shifted her focus quickly to pain sensors in her brain, dulling them.
“God damnit, Taeri!”
“I told you it wouldn’t feel good.”
“Could have warned me it would be as painful as getting the damn wounds.”
“Could have figured that out for yourself. This can’t be your first wound.”
Shara bit her tongue. It was her first wound—first real one. Sure, training with swords, daggers and Source ended with some cuts on occasion, and definitely a lot of bruises. But she had never been truly injured.
“How’s Melana? She hurt her arm when we were coming back down.” Shara asked.
Melana spoke up from behind Shara’s left side, “I’m fine. Stings, but its nothing compared to what you got.”
“I’m sorry—I thought breaking up the giant rock would protect us. I’m not sure if I made it better or worse, honestly.”
Shara felt a hand on her calf that patted her, “It’s okay. You did what you thought was best, and there’s no way to know if it was better or worse, so don’t worry about it.”
Taeri pulled another bandage from her.
“Just—stop. Let me Lifecast it a little bit and then you can finish,” Shara said.
Taeri huffed, “You know you can’t do that. It’s tough ‘nuff getting a Lifecast right when you’re able to see the damage. You can’t work on your own back with Intuition alone. That’s a recipe for disaster.”
“Couldn’t see your broken leg and I did fine with that.”
Sabeen chimed in, “Bones are big and pretty easy to set. Muscle tendons and fibers—not so much. You need to let it start to heal—we get you back to Prin and healed up by a Lifecaster there.”
Song of Sundering Page 35