“I am aware, Johann,” Kitahara says. It’s not as though there’s anything I can do to make Cathwell stay focused.
A pang of guilt strikes me, but it’s short-lived. It’s not like I was intentionally ignoring Kitahara before. The Outside has a way of messing with a Nyte’s gift if they’re not used to it—and it’s been a long time since I was last Outside. I remind myself that I need to focus more Out here. At least until I’ve readjusted.
“Hold on tight, Cathwell,” Kitahara says. I wrap my arms around his stomach. He twists the handles and the byc soundlessly kicks forward. Mendel and Johann pull in line behind us.
The wind stings. It pricks at the lower, uncovered half of my face like needles until I bury my face in Kitahara’s back. He stiffens but doesn’t pull away. She hasn’t been Outside in a while. I hope she’s okay. He’s warm.
Even after we’ve left the sector far behind, the scenery remains unchanged: rocks, spider-webbing fissures in the sand-colored ground, rocks, murky sky, rocks, rocks, and rocks everywhere as far as the eye can see. In the distance, I can barely make out the outline of what I think is a forest.
The initial pressure of the Outside slowly lets up on my body. The air starts to taste semi-normal again.
But my gift is proving trickier to control. It zooms in and out between Kitahara, Johann, and Mendel at random, as though it has a will of its own, and refuses to tune out like I want it to. I twist my fingers around one another repeatedly, trying to create an outside anchor for my attention, but with little luck.
“Where are we going?” Johann’s voice sounds directly into my ears from the comm system in our helmets, and I almost mistake it for a thought.
It’s a good question. As much as I’d searched for the location of our mission in the files we were given, I couldn’t find it. Kitahara must be the only one with the exact coordinates, forcing us to be dependent on him. Austin has always been tricky like that.
“A rebel base,” Kitahara says. His voice reverberates in the space Johann’s previously occupied.
“No, really?” I can almost feel the eye roll coming from Johann. Any idiot would know that. “Where exactly?”
“In the west,” Kitahara says. “By Nefrin Lake.”
Mendel pulls up to join us and throws Kitahara a quick, two-fingered salute. “How long till we arrive?” Just want to get this over with, need to get back to meet that new information broker and see if she can help me. “We’re open targets out here so long as we’re moving through this area.”
Now that’s interesting. What’s this about an information broker?
This time, I deliberately listen in on his thoughts and find that he’s replaying a memory.
I stood overlooking a city blanketed in darkness. The night was broken only by lanterns strewn throughout the maze of streets below. Next to me, a girl with deeply tan skin and pale blue eyes leaned against the balcony railing. “The night is approaching,” she said.
I didn’t look at her when I replied, “It’s about time.”
“Not much I can do about that,” Kitahara says. His voice right in my ears jars me back to the present, and for a moment, I struggle to remember what he’s talking about.
The major taps one of the screens in front of him and enlarges a map. Curving lines arc out across the area, red dots skirting the right edge of the screen. Ferals. Judging by the path they’re taking and the direction we’re headed, we shouldn’t run into them. “There’s no one around save some distant Ferals. We’re okay for now. The emergency system will let us know if anyone comes near enough to attack.”
“I still don’t like it.” Mendel’s eyes narrow as he looks around us without moving his head. “Isn’t there another route we can take?”
“Not without wasting time for no good reason.”
“We could—”
“The sooner the better what with the night approaching,” I say. But I’m still half caught in Mendel’s head as I try to say we need to get back before night falls. I realize my fumble as soon as the words have left my mouth.
“It’s still early morning, Cathwell,” Kitahara says. But Mendel’s attention has snapped to me and something burns in his eyes. Something that shouldn’t have been brought to the surface.
I screwed up. My words were too precise, and too odd, just as he was thinking about that exact memory.
Mendel opens his mouth to say something, but just as quickly shuts it. I can’t bring it up here with the others around. I’ll have to wait until later. It takes some time before he looks away from me again. He falls back in line.
What was that about? I can almost feel Johann’s eyes on my back. Well, whatever. So long as we’re not taking some stupid time-consuming detour.
I press my helmeted forehead to Kitahara’s back again. This time, he doesn’t shift.
We continue on in silence.
I’ve gotten used to being Outside again, which will be helpful when we have to actually fight the rebels. Even my gift has calmed back down. I hope we get there soon. I’m tired of just holding on to Kitahara and watching the dull landscape pass by.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Kitahara slows the byc to a stop. Mendel and Johann follow suit, and they all hide the bycs in a small alcove of boulders.
“Everyone knows the plan?” Kitahara asks. He opens all the pockets of the belt tied around his waist to double-check his equipment. He’s the only one.
“You’ll take them out from a distance until they notice their numbers are falling,” Mendel says, intoning as if from a book. Kitahara beat it into us enough times before we left. “The guards’ positions are far enough apart that it should take approximately two minutes before they realize anything’s wrong.”
“Once they do, I attack from the front and act as decoy.” Johann pulls out a thin black metal cylinder about a foot in length. With the press of a button, and several snaps of metal slipping out and locking into place, it extends into a halberd taller than its wielder. The blades on the end curl back toward each other, nearly forming the outline of a circle.
“And I come up from behind for a surprise attack while you continue picking them off,” Mendel says. He watches as Johann swings the halberd back and forth. “Adding to the confusion.”
“Cathwell?” Kitahara prompts.
“I stay with you.” My eyes flick from Johann’s halberd to Mendel transforming his compressed weapon into a long black sword to Kitahara. “I guard you.”
I can’t count how many times it was drilled into me before we left Central that I wasn’t to leave Kitahara’s side. He seems especially particular about making sure everything goes right, and since he’s the only one not going directly into battle, he decided the best place for me—who hasn’t been Outside in years, who hasn’t seen real battle in ages, who has a tendency to get distracted, who hasn’t revealed her gift—was with him. Being his guard is just an excuse.
His confidence in being able to control everything is almost laughable.
“Good.” Kitahara nods. He catches Johann’s eye, then Mendel’s. Glances at the small, three-dimensional digital map projecting from the Military Mobile Assistant attached to his wrist. The MMA is a small device in the shape of a watch that helps us out in the field. It’s mostly useful for mapping the area and sending signals to other MMAs.
A red X marks the position of the rebel base. A few squares off, four blue dots huddle together over one spot, marking our position.
Kitahara snaps the map off. “Let’s go.”
7
LAI
KITAHARA DOESN’T LOOK back as we separate from the others and head out into the open. We duck behind whatever boulders we can. Small dust clouds kick up behind us. After about five minutes of slipping from cover to cover, we finally come up on the base.
It’s smaller than I expected, set at the bottom of a crater maybe a quarter mile deep. The slopes are bare and offer no coverage. The walls of the base are built from dark red stone, the same shade as
the deeper part of the crater. Rebels patrol atop the outer walls, but the structure itself is small. With the size, camouflage, and terrain, it’s easy to see how this place was overlooked before now.
I don’t know how we’re supposed to sneak closer without so much as a withered shrub to hide ourselves. They might’ve even found us already, depending on their gifts and technology. Who knows what the rebels managed to steal.
“Which way?” I ask.
“Here is fine.” Kitahara glances back the way we came, but I can’t see Mendel or Johann. I can hear their thoughts, though, so they must be close by.
Kitahara jerks his wrist down and a thin blade a little longer than his hand appears. The handle has four holes in it for close combat, but he holds it like any normal pocketknife now, only more loosely.
He closes his eyes. Bends his head. Before I can ask what he’s doing, his head snaps up and his hand flicks out to send the knife flying. I can’t even see the blade as it cuts through the air, it’s so fast.
The voices murmuring in my head grow just a tiny bit quieter.
“Down?” I ask.
“Down.” Another throwing knife is already in his hand.
We run a short distance, until he can aim at another angle of the base.
Again, he closes his eyes, and again, he deftly sends his blade whistling through the air. This time, I see someone fall off the top of the wall.
“You don’t look,” I say.
“I don’t have to.”
We start running again, but a shout goes up from the base. The first part of our plan is up. Time for Johann to step in.
“My ability to sense others’ locations is incredibly accurate,” Kitahara says. Johann careens down the slope toward the base. “Since I can sense the enemies’ positions, I know exactly where to aim to cut them down. It just took practice being able to throw that precisely.”
And the strength of a Nyte ensures his blades reach their targets even from a distance like this. That’s a pretty inventive use of what sounds like an otherwise battle-weak gift. If my ability to hear thoughts could pinpoint someone’s location that precisely, I wonder if I would’ve thought of that.
Arrows rain down on Johann. The sergeant major doesn’t even hesitate before throwing up a wave of fire that crashes ahead toward the base. Flames crackle and roil over each other in a race to reach the enemy’s hideout first. Shouts echo throughout the crater, and as the wave of fire smashes into the front gates, flares scream skyward.
Kitahara watches silently, and I think he’s waiting for the smoke and flames to clear before he makes his next throw, but then he sends another blade flying. Right. He doesn’t need to see to aim.
“How many are left?”
“Five,” Kitahara says. “Mendel is coming in on the other side.” He winces. “Three. The problem is the flares. We’ll have to hope none of their comrades are nearby.”
“You’ll sense them if they come, right?”
He purses his lips. Lets another knife go. “Yeah.”
There’s something about the way he says that one word that makes it highly unbelievable. I can only concentrate on one area at a time and I need to assist Mendel and Johann. I don’t know where reinforcements would come from, either. I need to make this quick.
I turn my back on him to face the area behind us. It is, like most of the terrain we passed through earlier, filled with hundreds of boulders and pillar-like rocks scattered at random. Anyone could be hiding among them.
Glancing back to make sure Kitahara is fully focused on the battle in front of him, I lean into my gift and listen for any new thoughts.
Unlike Kitahara, my range is pretty short unless there’s strong, mutual trust between me and the person I’m trying to hear. Which is why I don’t notice four people approaching until they’re only thirty yards away.
Aim carefully keep the brunette alive kill the other.
I grab the back of Kitahara’s collar and practically throw him down the side of the crater. He shouts as he tumbles down the incline, sending rubble and stones clattering after him.
An arrow flies through his former position. I run toward its archer—a rebel dressed all in sand-colored camouflage, crouched behind a boulder, bow still drawn—and decompress my weapon. The cylinder extends into a metal spear a head taller than I am, equipped on both ends with sharpened blades. I thrust one straight through the boy’s chest before he can run.
He stares at it. Tries to pull it out.
My heart stutters.
I rip my weapon from him and turn to catch another rebel’s sword along the shaft. I tilt my spear and the sword scrapes along the metal, making him lose his hold. Then I kick him in the stomach. He stumbles back, and I run my spear through his throat. I can feel my blood pounding under my skin.
I don’t have time to tear it out before another rebel comes down on me. I swing my spear around, still with the rebel impaled on the end, and force the body into a collision with the third rebel. She shrieks as her friend’s body hits her, and the force sends them both to the ground.
The smell of blood is overpowering. The growing quiet in my mind—usually such a blessing when I’m finally able to leave a crowd—just makes it worse. I push down my rising nausea. I have to do this. I need to stop these people.
I raise my spear to finish the girl, only to end up using it as a pole vault to avoid a spike of ice as it shoots up from the ground. My boots skid across the dirt, scattering a cloud of dust as I turn to see a tall girl with deeply tan skin, dark brown hair, and pale eyes the color of ice extending her hand in my direction.
Ice Eyes jerks her hand in an arc. I bolt as shards of ice crystallize in the air and cut toward me. I have to duck into a roll to avoid the last few.
My hands and feet shoot out to propel me into the side of a boulder, narrowly driving me out of the way of another spike of ice sprouting from the ground. My right arm takes the brunt of the force as I collide with solid rock.
I push down the pain as I race to avoid her next rain of missiles, only to stumble right into Rebel Three’s path. Shit. How did I lose track of her?
She yells as she brings her sword down against my spear. The force shoots through my right arm and I have to bite back a cry. I nearly lose my grip. Blood pounds in my ears as I shuffle back and forth, completely on the defensive as I try to keep her swings at bay.
My mind is still focused on reading everyone’s thoughts and intended moves before they make them. Which is why I know exactly when to sidestep Rebel Three’s sword and spin around behind her, kicking her into my former position so that she’s the one who lands on Ice Eye’s crystal spear.
She screams.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Then I bob and weave to avoid getting stabbed by spears of ice myself. My arm screams in protest, but there’s nothing I can do except grit my teeth.
It hurts. I don’t want to be here. It’s been too long since I was last in a real fight. Knowing that I could die with any wrong move. Taking lives that just seconds before had thoughts, dreams, friends, maybe family waiting for them to come back. I hate it. I hate this.
The pattern of falling ice changes. A spear goes straight through my foot, and this time, I can’t hold back my scream. I fall to one knee and gasp as I try to hold back the tears of pain.
When I look up, Ice Eyes is standing in front of me. She holds a sword to my neck, but we both know she won’t kill me. Ellis doesn’t want me dead.
The girl’s thoughts burn with barely suppressed fury and grief. For a moment, I can’t see her as a rebel bent on killing thousands of innocent ungifted. I can only see a girl about my own age who just lost three of her friends—no, more, counting the rebels we took out at the base.
The tip of her sword presses against my throat. Hot blood trickles down.
“I’ve got orders to bring you back alive,” the girl says very quietly. Her voice is like brittle ice. “But I have half a mind to kill you.”
“You wouldn’t betray Ellis like that.”
She looks like she’s about to respond—but then her head snaps around and a wall of ice rises behind her. The sharp, piercing shatter of metal cracking off it rings in my ears.
Kitahara is standing on the edge of the crater, covered in dust and scratches and out of breath from his climb back up, but ultimately unhurt. He’s already drawn another knife.
“Don’t,” I say, but I don’t know whether I’m talking to Kitahara or Ice Eyes. He can’t take her on. I don’t want her to kill him.
Ice Eyes barely looks at me. Her sword doesn’t move from my throat. “You killed my friends.” She flicks her wrist, and ice spears form in the air above Kitahara. He watches them, trying to decide where they’ll fall, but there are too many to avoid. Unlike with me, Ice Eyes is aiming to kill.
“Please,” I whisper.
She lets her hand fall. The ice rains down.
And meets a wall of flames.
The rebel pulls up a shield of ice to deflect most of the attack, but the heat blasts past, scorching my skin even through my protective uniform. I close my eyes against the burn. Is Johann trying to kill us both?
Ice Eyes grabs my bad arm, still intent on bringing me back with her. But before she can run, an invisible force rips me back so fast it nearly snaps my neck. When I open my eyes, I’m on the other side of the fire, back on the rim of the crater.
My head is spinning. What just happened?
Mendel is standing in front of me, hands on his knees, focus trained on the wild flames only yards in front of us. Other than a few cuts and scrapes, he seems none the worse for wear.
Then Kitahara is by my side. His hands fly first over my throat with its thin dribble of blood, and then my speared foot. The ice projectile in it disperses in a cloud of steam, letting loose a stream of blood with it.
“You’ll be okay,” Kitahara says. He says it again as he gets the first-aid kit out of his equipment belt. Again as he gently eases off my boot to better see my injury. Again as he pulls out long strips of bandages and puts pressure on the wound before wrapping it up.
A Soldier and a Liar Page 7