THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 33: Fly
“God wears the face of your enemy. Whatever the outcome, you will know death. Pay your respects.”
– Heon Cerro, Prian police officer (224 PA)
Tiberius was on the radio again. He finished the call and turned the com over in his hands. A simple, everyday little item that seemed to age Tiberius a full decade as he tucked it back into his pocket. The older Prian caught Kemmer’s eye.
“What is it?” Kemmer asked suspiciously.
Tiberius paused, gathering his thoughts. He leaned against a cracked piece of stone where Orphia perched and scratched the old hawk above her eyes. After a long moment, Tiberius straightened and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Archeologists!” he bellowed.
Kemmer sighed. “Archeologists? Really? What’s going on?”
Tiberius remained stubbornly silent until Xen collected his whole team and Ava brought Darius over. They gathered in a tight knot beneath one of the rocky overhangs. Rainwater dripped from above, collected in the ravine and was piped up to the surface to spill away down the mountainside. Just hours ago, Gruth had complained loudly that he could really, really use Gripper’s help. Under pressure, Kemmer supposed that it was easy to forget the other mechanic was an alien.
When you need help, Kemmer thought, you can’t be too picky about where you get it.
Kemmer looked down at Xen, standing at the head of his small team. The Waygate loomed over them all, streaming rainwater and pulsing with cold light.
“That was Duaal,” Tiberius said. “The Cult of Nihil is on their way here.”
“What? The same hawks who took your friend? Why?” Kemmer pointed accusingly at Tiberius. “And you wanted to leave us alone!”
“Then it’s a good thing I stayed here,” Tiberius said. He seemed unruffled by Kemmer’s irritation. Was it because he was truly that implacable? Or because he had other, much more terrible things to worry about? “Gavriel’s coming for the Waygate. He’s going to use it to summon the Devourers.”
“The Waygate?” Kemmer asked. He looked up at it. “My Waygate? Over my dead God-damned body!”
“Wait, we don’t even know if the Waygate still functions,” Xen objected.
“What are Devourers?” Gruth asked.
“You’re supposed to be an archeologist,” Tiberius said.
“I’m an engineer!”
“The Devourers are nasty bastards who wiped out the White Kingdom a century ago,” Tiberius told them. “Now Gavriel wants to bring them to the core to kill everyone.”
Darius and Ava both looked grim, their rough Prian faces set in heavy, serious lines. Ava took Phillip’s hand and held it tightly. The others just seemed frightened.
“You can’t be serious!” Phillip said. His voice shook so much that Kemmer could barely understand the words.
“I am,” Tiberius answered. “Gavriel and his people will kill you before they summon the Devourers. They think they’re doing you a favor. We need to get you out of here.”
Gruth skinned his lips back from long teeth and growled low in his throat. Xen put a restraining hand on the Lyran’s furry shoulder and shook his head.
“How much time do we have before they get here?” the Ixthian asked.
“What? No! We can’t abandon the site!” Kemmer shouted.
He reached back under one of the worktables and pulled a pack out by the worn leather strap. Kemmer rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. He came up with a compact null-inertia gun and thrust it into his belt. Xen’s eyes flashed red at the sight of it.
“What do you think you’re doing? We can’t fight, Kemmer! I’m not asking my people to die for this!” he said. The Ixthian turned to his team. “Take only what you need. We’re leaving!”
“We can’t take the road. Duaal and Coldhand have the trucks,” Tiberius told them loudly to make himself heard as the archeologists scattered to grab their gear. “And Gavriel is probably coming that way. There will be Arcadians flying in, too.”
“We can go west,” Phillip said. “There are some other cracks and tunnels opened up by the quakes. We can hide there until… until this is over.”
“How far away are these tunnels?” Enu-Io asked.
“About half a mile,” Phillip answered.
“We only need to hide you for a while,” Tiberius said. “Duaal, Maeve and thirty cops are going to be here soon. We just need to get you out.”
Kemmer noticed the old man’s choice of words.
“What about you?” he asked.
Tiberius was not looking at the archeologist as he answered. He petted Orphia and stared up at the jagged mouth of the ravine.
“I’m staying here,” Tiberius said. “I can’t just let the cult take the Waygate. The damage they could do is too great. Besides, I have something to settle with Gavriel.”
“You’re badly outnumbered,” Enu-Io told him, returning with a duffle bag over his wide blue shoulders. “How will you fight?”
“Coldhand’s Raptor is up on the mountain.” Tiberius suddenly laughed. “I’ll show that bastard bounty hunter what real flying looks like. Gruth, I’ll need your help. Those Raptors are sealed with print locks.”
“You want me to break in?” Gruth asked, hefting his tool cases. “Sure, I can manage that.”
Kemmer lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. “Well, I’m not leaving either, Captain Myles. I’m not leaving my Waygate to those… whoever they are.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Xen said. He grabbed Kemmer’s arm. The Ixthian archeologist’s fingers were trembling and tight. “This is still your discovery! When we present it on Tynerion, you’ll have plenty of funding for anything you need and we can come back. But a posthumous award won’t do you any good!”
“No.” Kemmer pulled away from the Ixthian. “It’s not just about who gets credit, Xen. This Waygate is Prian. It belongs to us, not a bunch of off-world rats. If they want to destroy the Alliance, they can damned well do it from somewhere else.”
Xen stared with eyes flashing through an entire spectrum of colors. “We’re scholars, not warriors!”
Maybe on Tynerion, Xen and his students could afford to think like that. They didn’t have to be fighters. On Prianus, Kemmer had no choice. Not learning to fire a gun or call a hawk — or at least to hide behind someone who could — meant not surviving to adulthood. Kemmer shook his head and rested his hand on the gun in his belt.
“You’ll never understand,” he told Xen.
“Neither do you, Doctor Kemmer,” Tiberius said.
“What?” Kemmer asked.
“You hired me and mine to protect this place,” Tiberius grunted. “I’m not working with some amateur. You’re leaving, too.”
Kemmer went hot with fury. “What? Not a chance! I’m staying right here with the Waygate!”
“No. You’re not.” Tiberius’ voice was quieter now, and somehow much more terrible. He wasn’t arguing, simply stating an unshakable truth. “We’re outnumbered at least twenty to one. Even if every one of you stood to fight, it wouldn’t matter. So you’re hiding. All of you.”
Kemmer could summon up no more arguments. Tiberius called Orphia to his shoulder and whistled to the archeologists.
“Now, if we’re all done squabbling, it’s time to go. We don’t have much time,” he said. “Everybody stick close and move fast. We’re going up to the surface. Gruth, you get me into the Raptor and then everyone follow Phillip out. Got it?”
Everyone nodded — some more grudging than others — but they dashed through the icy ravine and toward the ladder.
The scream of sirens made Duaal’s swollen-feeling head throb even more, but it was hard to care. Tiberius was up there in the Kayton Mountains, all alone against Gavriel and Xartasia and their whole crazy cult! Almost alone… But how much good would the archeologists be against the Nihilist?
Not much, Duaal guessed.
The Prian police cavalcade flashed with red and green lights. Through small windows in the side of the van, Duaal watched rain-soaked gray Pylos streak past.
Cerro sat between two other cops on a dented steel bench on the other side of the van. He looked at Duaal as the driver swerved around a cylindrical fuel hauler.
“We’ll be there soon,” Cerro said. It might have been meant as reassurance, but his voice was as serious as ever. “There’s nothing to win by worrying.”
Duaal nodded mutely and raked his hands through his hair. On one side, Xia was hurriedly patching Maeve’s wounds, borrowing heavily from the police supplies to stitch and bandage her many cuts. Logan Coldhand watched Xia work, his expression stony. In the bounty hunter’s eyes, Duaal doubted that trying to wipe out all life in the galaxy was Gavriel’s greatest crime.
At least Panna and Gripper looked just as terrified as Duaal felt. The two sat on his other flank, staring at the floor. What were they going to do? Panna carried no weapons of her own and Gripper knew nothing of battle.
Duaal wondered if he was any better. Could he actually help? After all of his years of begging and complaining about being left out of danger, Duaal was just scared.
Gavriel was up there. Ice flowed through Duaal’s veins, and his knees felt like sacks of water. His heart seemed at once to be racing so fast that it was about to tear itself apart and to have stopped beating altogether. Duaal’s fingertips were numb and his stomach was full of acid fire.
But Tiberius was up there, too — the rough but kind old man who had taken care of Duaal, even when the stupid boy didn’t want him to.
“Can’t we go any faster?” Duaal asked. His voice cracked.
Cerro shook his head.
“Do you hear anything?”
“Yeah, I hear you. Shut up!”
“That’s enough, both of you,” Tiberius told Gruth and Kemmer. “I hear something, but I think it’s still far away. Let’s move.”
He led them up the ladder, out of the ravine and into the rain. Kemmer shielded his eyes with one arm and stared down the slope. Rain seeped through the snow and raised a thick gray fog that shrouded the moraine in gloom. The ground shuddered under Kemmer’s feet and a loud rumble rolled through the air, too long to be thunder. Something big was coming.
“Gruth, we’ve got to get that fighter open,” Tiberius said.
“Right,” the Lyran growled.
They charged off toward the grounded Raptor. Kemmer hurried to follow, but something swooped out of the low-hanging clouds. It had long wings and a cheap gun gripped tightly in hands red with oozing sores. The gun cracked loudly and echoed off the mountain. Kemmer dove into the snow and Gruth howled in pain. Blood sprayed from a gaping hole in the Lyran’s thigh and he sprawled on the icy ground.
“Tiberius!” Enu-Io shouted.
The rumbling was closer now, deep and loud and mechanical. A long metal shape roared up onto the mountaintop and screeched to a stop. It was a truck, a huge one for hauling large cargo. Or a lot of smaller things…
The Nihilists had arrived.
Tiberius’ expression became grim as he turned toward the huge truck. Steel doors in the back slammed open and Nihilists all in black poured out, filling the foggy moraine with deadly silhouettes. Arcadians dropped out of the churning gray sky all around them. There were hundreds of Gavriel’s people, surrounding them and closing in. There was no way out.
“They’re too close! Get down!” Tiberius shouted.
Kemmer jumped back and yanked the gun from his belt. “Back to the Waygate!”
Xen stared around the throng of Nihilists, eyes wide and dull red with terror. Kemmer grabbed the Ixthian and dragged him back toward the ladder.
“Gruth! Gruth, are you still with me?” Tiberius said, shaking the Lyran. “You have to get out of the open!”
Gruth bared his sharp teeth and snarled. “I can’t do anything on this leg!”
He was right. The ground all around was crimson and Kemmer could make out the white splinters of bone jutting up from Gruth’s matted fur. Another shot cracked nearby and threw snow up in a frozen spray. Tiberius nodded once and ran toward the angular hulk of Coldhand’s Raptor, dragging the Lyran along and leaving blood-spotted furrows in the ice.
“Get underneath,” Tiberius said. “The ship will cover you some, at least against those guns. And get that canopy unsealed!”
Gruth laid his ears back. “Not likely.”
“Do it!”
Before the mechanic could protest or argue, Tiberius freed a bigger null-inertia pistol than Kemmer’s from under his coat.
Downslope, the archeologists scrambled toward safety. Enu-Io took Phillip’s hand and swung him over the edge of the ravine, but then the tall Dailon sprawled face-down in the snow, a black laser burn sliced deep across his broad back. Darius shouted in fury and yanked a knife from his boot. He flung it at the nearest Nihilist, a one-eyed Hadrian who reeled back, clawing at the blade in his throat.
“Darius!” Ava cried. “Come on!”
He dove toward the ladder as another one of Gavriel’s Nihilists snatched the knife from his companion’s neck and hurled it back. The blade flipped once and then buried itself deep into the meat of Darius’ arm. The Prian clenched his teeth and hauled himself laboriously down after his sister.
Tiberius ran back to the ravine’s edge and waved to Kemmer.
“You wanted to stand with your Waygate?” he said. “I hope you meant it. Get down there!”
“What the hells do you think you’re going to do up here alone?” Kemmer asked.
“Get out of here and let me do my job!” Tiberius shouted.
Kemmer nodded and jumped over Enu-Io’s body, then climbed down the ladder as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him. As soon as he reached the bottom, Tiberius heaved the ladder free and threw it down, narrowly avoiding hitting Kemmer at the bottom of the crevasse.
“Get moving!” Tiberius’ voice was barely audible and sounded very far away.
Kemmer turned and ran for the Waygate.
